Dr. Moncada is a highly trained health professional with 20 years of experience working as both a Registered Nurse and a Family Nurse Practitioner. She recently earned her Doctorate of Nurse Practitioner (DNP), which emphasizes clinical practice-oriented leadership training. Her comprehensive nursing experience includes cardiology, neurology, burn unit, pulmonary unit, vascular access, intensive care unit, and charge experience. In addition, she has been a senior nurse partner with evaluation and education responsibilities. After spending 15 years in a hospital setting providing acute care, her commitment to patient outcomes and advocacy led her focus her practice on prevention. In 2015 she earned her Advanced Practice Degree and began working as a Family Nurse Practitioner at the Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), Mary’s Center, where she provided primary and preventive care to underserved, non-insured, immigrant populations and was a committee member of the “Self-Empowerment Program” to encourage and optimize self-care among immigrant populations.
She is passionate about providing the best preventive care for underserved populations in a culturally sensitive manner. Her DNP project, “Evaluation of Self-Empowerment Program for Underserved Populations in Primary Care,” reflects that passion. Moncada’s goal as a DNP graduate is to improve population health by incorporating evidence-based practices and education not only in her community but also nationally and around the globe.
Dr. Moncada was born in Bogota, Colombia, and growing up she had a very weak family structure, which offered her minimal family support. While always an honor student, her life trajectory led her to be in the U.S. at the age of 16 without any high school credit. But with support from the U.S. Military Education center, she obtained her GED in less than a month. Many teachers and professors encouraged her to continue to pursue education allowing her to break the cycle of poverty in her family. She is the first in her family to graduate from college and the only one with a doctorate degree.
“My life is the embodiment of the SMART™ model and illustrates the power of education and the importance of support along the way to be able to achieve,” says Moncada.
Now, as an accomplished health care professional, she views the academic purpose of SMART™ and its priority to provide Active Access to healthcare to all students in the school building as a groundbreaking model that could enable many more students like her to succeed in life. She is honored to have the opportunity to work with the Ginn Group Consulting SMART™ team to ensure improved health and academic outcomes for students. Dr. Moncada completed her DNP degree in May 2018, at George Mason University, where she earned her nursing credentials from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) and was a member of the Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honor Society.
As a member of the Critical Care Roundtable, a member of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, and as a volunteer for Mobile Medical Care clinic, she has served her community in many ways and is fluent in both Spanish and English.
