Sue Petula, PhD, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, FRE
Sue Petula, PhD, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, FRE
Consultant
Dr. Petula recently joined the ATI Nursing Education Consultant team. Dr. Petula holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Health Promotion, and a master’s degree, as a clinical nurse specialist in critical care and administration. She completed a Fellowship with the Institute of Regulatory Excellence from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) in 2013. Most recently Dr. Petula served as a Nursing Education Advisor to the Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing. In this role she provided oversight for prelicensure nursing education programs throughout the state. This oversight included programs’ compliance with applicable regulations, curriculum development and revision, nursing program proposal reviews, and approval of faculty and clinical agencies. While there she developed strong relationships with all PA nursing education programs; was instrumental in the development of an innovative database that stream lined Board processes and enabled an electronic interface with nursing programs; worked with the legal team on key regulations related to nursing education; and developed a comprehensive continuing education program for nursing education directors and faculty related to relevant nursing law and regulations.
Dr. Petula has board certification in advanced nursing administration and has held several faculty appointments in graduate and undergraduate university- based nursing programs. Her clinical practice background is in critical care and gerontology. Her doctoral studies focused mainly on nursing leadership, quality, and patient safety and she has published in the areas of systems theory, quality, and critical care practice. She has had administrative experience serving in a variety of capacities within a large tertiary healthcare system and home health care organization in Northeast Pennsylvania.
Dr. Petula has served as a member of several NCSBN committees, panels and task force including the Nursing Examination Committee, the Institute of Regulatory Excellence, the task force on Taxonomy of Error, Root Cause Analysis and Practice Breakdown (TERCAP), and the Leadership Succession committee of NCSBN. She is a current member of NLN and Sigma where she served two terms as President of the IOTA Omega Chapter.
Her peers have recognized Dr. Petula as a valued nursing professional who supports faculty and directors to better understand regulation, nursing education leadership and its application to assure public safety and the provision of high-quality nursing education. Dr. Petula has made exceptional contributions to nursing regulation and was recognized with the conferral of the PA Department of State Secretary’s Award for outstanding performance and the Exceptional Contribution Award from NCSBN. Personally, being a nurse and continuing to grow as a nurse is her passion and nursing defines her, she consistently advocates health promotion practices and is an exercise enthusiast, especially enjoying spin and running. She is active in her church and a board member on the local property owners' association and a member, along with her husband of 38 years, of the local historical society. She is married and has one daughter and a grand dog Liberty.