M
arilyn R. McFarland, PhD, RN, CTN, FNP-BC is Associate Professor, Department of Nursing, School of Health Professions and Studies, University of Michigan-Flint. Dr. McFarland earned her PhD in Nursing with a focus in Transcultural Nursing from Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Master of Science in Nursing from Wayne State with a major in Medical Surgical nursing and minors in Teaching in Nursing, Gerontological Nursing, and Transcultural Nursing; and Bachelor of Science in Nursing also from Wayne State. Her family nurse practitioner certificate was earned from Saginaw Valley State University in 2005.
Recognized by the Transcultural Nursing Society as a Certified Transcultural Nurse and a Transcultural Nursing Author and Scholar, Dr. McFarland is nationally and internationally recognized for her contributions to Transcultural Nursing. She was the Recipient of the 1994 Leininger Transcultural Nursing Award for Excellence and Creative Leadership in Transcultural Nursing and Human Care from Wayne State University, College of Nursing, and the 1993 Recipient of the Leininger Award for Excellence in Transcultural Nursing from the Transcultural Nursing Society.
In addition to numerous book chapters and articles, Dr. McFarland has co-authored two texts with Dr. Madeleine Leininger, Culture Care Diversity and Universality: A Worldwide Nursing Theory (2006) and Transcultural Nursing: Concepts, Theories, Research, and Practice (2002) which was the recipient of the 2003 American Journal of Nursing’s Book of the Year Award. She is past editor of the Journal of the Transcultural Nursing and current Chair of the Transcultural Nursing Certification Commission (TCNCC) which is preparing a revised certification examination process, and is a member of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties, Michigan Council of Nurse Practitioners, American Nurses’ Association, and the Michigan Nurses’ Association, as well as a career-long (20 plus years) member of Sigma Theta Tau International.
Dr. McFarland has taught at the undergraduate level in the areas of gerontology, fundamentals of nursing, and health assessment. She currently teaches nursing at the graduate level, focusing on advanced practice nursing role development, graduate qualitative nursing research, and several qualitative nursing student research projects each semester. She has also mentored many doctoral nursing dissertations nationally as well as many master’s theses statewide. She currently co-chairs the Graduate Curriculum Committee and co-developed the new curriculum for the DNP program. Her clinical practice is focused on caring for the underinsured at the university-sponsored primary care clinic where she also precepts graduate and undergraduate students and participates in clinically-focused research.
As a leader in Transcultural Nursing, Dr. McFarland has studied, practiced, consulted, and lectured throughout the United States and in various parts of Europe and Australia. She has conducted transcultural research studies focused on Polish, Anglo- and African-American, Mexican-American, and German-American elders using Leininger’s theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality. Her scholarly interests include management of chronic pain, and the integration of transcultural theory into nurse practitioner practice in primary care settings. She is currently a co-participant in a metasynthesis of culture care theory research studies guided by the theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality. She welcomes undergraduate and graduate nursing students as co-participants in her qualitative nursing research projects.
