For Philip Mellijor, becoming a nurse educator felt like a natural extension of his work as an emergency room nurse in Roseville.

Last year, Mellijor pursued the Residency in Education, Teaching, And Instruction in Nursing (RETAIN) program at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis. The 14-week RETAIN program helped Mellijor become a clinical instructor, or preceptor — a key role in nursing education where licensed nurses guide students during clinical rotations. He credits the RETAIN program for teaching him how to provide hands-on training and constructive feedback to students. 

This fall, in addition to continuing his work as an emergency room nurse, Mellijor will serve as a clinical instructor at Sierra College, a California Community College serving Northern California counties, where he will help students connect classroom learning with real-world care. Given the small-group structure of clinical training, he will precept a cohort of four students across multiple rotations.

As a psychiatric nurse practitioner serving rural communities, Brandy Gleason brings real-world care into her classroom at CSU Stanislaus

Based in her hometown of Oakdale in Stanislaus County, Gleason also provides mental health care in rural communities through in-person and telehealth visits. An alum of the UCSF Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program, she integrates resilience training into her teaching and equips students with tools to navigate challenging clinical experiences and sustain long-term practice in a high-need specialty — an approach particularly important for supporting the next generation of mental health professionals.

Her work reflects a deep connection to the region and highlights how nurse educators help address gaps in access, particularly in areas like the Central Valley, where provider shortages and geographic barriers limit care. 

A third-generation nurse and former UCSF emergency room nurse, Gleason brings her current clinical experience directly into the classroom at CSU Stanislaus, where she is also the founding director of its Post Graduate Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) program. She notes that teaching grounded in real-world practice helps build trust with students and makes their training more relevant.

Gleason also emphasizes the importance of training students from the communities they will serve.

Paola German brings her experience as a trauma nurse and nurse practitioner into the classroom, teaching students how to educate patients and build trust.

Paola German earned her DNP from the Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing at UC Irvine and returned as an assistant professor, teaching in the undergraduate and doctoral programs. She also practices as a nurse practitioner at the UC Irvine Student Health Center. Her area of focus is on vaccines, not only in clinical care but also through community-based and research engagements. 

The integration of care, education and human connection is central to her teaching approach. At a recent health fair, German proudly observed her students provide vaccination information to community members, including those unfamiliar with the importance of HPV and influenza immunizations. The way students tailored their communication with empathy and cultural awareness reflected the very principles she instills — reinforcing both their clinical competence and their confidence.

German believes that mentorship is key to encouraging nurses to pursue educator roles, drawing from her own experience at UC Irvine. “It is about helping nurses see the broader path and the greater impact they can have.”

German’s background as a U.S. Army surgical technician and a UCI Health emergency department trauma nurse continues to shape her philosophy of care — one grounded in trust, compassion, and service.

Kia Skrine Jeffers draws on her work in public health nursing to help students understand how community and environmental factors shape patient health.

As an assistant professor at the UCLA Joe C. Wen School of Nursing, public health nurse and UCLA alum (MSN, Ph.D.), she emphasizes: “Once someone leaves the hospital, they return home to their communities. That’s where health and long-term recovery often happen. Our work is about supporting people and how they can thrive where they are.” 

In her public health nursing course, Skrine Jeffers invites nurses from different public health nursing specialties into her classroom, including those from school-based care, correctional health and disaster settings, to expose students to a broad scope of where nursing care occurs. These real-world perspectives help students understand how environmental, policy and community factors shape health outcomes. 

Skrine Jeffers’ role as an educator is also informed by her work with an LA-based safety-net program that provides health care services to low-income residents. “My nursing practice strengthens my research and my teaching, and reminds me of the ‘why,’” Skrine Jeffers notes. “Health and well-being are more than just what’s in [patient] charts…I bring those real-time and real-life stories and experiences to my students in the classroom.”