Melissa Powell, PhD, MS, RN, CPHQ, is a postdoctoral fellow with the National Clinician Scholars Program, in the process of completing a two-year fellowship at UCLA Health. The NCSP is a research training program for physicians and postdoctoral nurses, designed to immerse clinician scholars in a rigorous program of research, policy and leadership training.
UCLA is one of six universities nationally that participate in the program.
Dr. Powell — the only PhD-prepared nurse in her UCLA Health cohort — has a nursing background that includes oncology, critical care, research and quality improvement. Her research at UCLA Health focuses on implementing and evaluating the SupportingYou peer-to-peer program — an arm of A Safer U, centered on providing emotional support and resources for nurses.
Her interest in peer support was sparked in 2019 while working as a patient safety program manager. She interviewed clinicians after challenging events. Through her work, she recognized these clinicians were traumatized, and that there were limited support mechanisms for them.
“We could send them to long-term employee assistance programs through HR. We could try to send them to an emergency hotline. But what they needed was someone who was at their level, understood their role, and could empathetically talk with them and just be present,” she says.
Dr. Powell became a trained peer supporter and then began her doctoral program at Duke University. Like many clinicians, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic began to shape her research work. “I found in my dissertation that even three to four years later, nurses were still suffering,” she recalls. “The world had moved on, and these nurses had not.”
Dr. Powell was accepted into the UCLA National Clinician Scholars Program in July 2024 and knew it was the perfect fit for her peer-to-peer expertise. “My nursing mentors on the health system side were immediately talking about peer support. How do we create these settings where nurses can share and process their experiences? It was just a direct match that I had never felt anywhere else.”
In addition to her fellowship, Dr. Powell completed a Master of Science in health policy and management at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
How does she balance her priorities?
Day by day, she says.
“You can’t pour from an empty cup. If I continue to focus on my own well-being and practice what I preach, then everyone gets more from that.”
