Caroline Varner Coburn is an Associate Professor, clinical track, and earned her BSN from Duke University, MS from Georgia State University, Adult Nurse Practitioner certification from Emory University, and DNP from University of Alabama at Birmingham. Since 2004 she has been on the faculty at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University beginning as a Clinical Instructor. Her clinical background has been in the area of cardiovascular nursing, and her current content specialty and practice concentrate on ambulatory care nursing. She provides volunteer care at the Emory Nurse Practitioner-led clinic for refugee and immigrant populations in Clarkston, GA.  

Dr. Coburn’s academic focus is on ambulatory nursing and interprofessional education of undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate nurses in a domestic and global context. In this arena, she collaborates with a wide range of clinical partners to initiate and support academic content and clinical work in ambulatory care settings. Through the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing (AAACN), she has been part of a national taskforce for the creation of guidelines for Academic-Clinical Collaboration in the ambulatory setting, and currently serves on the Future Volunteers Leadership Taskforce for AAACN.

In the global health perspective of ambulatory care, for more than seven years she has led student groups and researchers in trips to Eleuthera, an under-resourced island of The Bahamas. In the course of this involvement, she has been Principal Investigator and Co- Principal Investigator for two separate student-led Emory Global Health Initiative grants that focused on healthcare in Eleuthera. Most recently, this included collaboration with a local non-governmental agency in Eleuthera to evaluate individual management of non-communicable chronic disease.  

Dr. Coburn is a co-investigator in the Emory Nursing Academic-Practice Partnership in Primary Care grant (CAPACITY) grant funded through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). This grant supports pre-licensure education that focuses on primary care nursing.  

Dr. Coburn is the lead editor of the textbook Perspectives in Ambulatory Care Nursing, published in 2021.

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Coburn, CV, Gilland, D, and Swan, BA (Eds.), Perspectives in Ambulatory Care Nursing, 1st Ed.

(2021). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer.

Coburn, C.V., Spence, S., LaCagnina, L., Becklenberg, A., Wands, L.M., Hayes Ferrere, A. (2021).

Ambulatory care simulation: A collaboration between MSN and BSN nursing students. Journal of

Nursing Education.

Coburn, CV, Gilland, D, Stahl, K. (2020) High-fidelity simulation in an undergraduate ambulatory

care nursing course. Nursing Education Perspectives. 41(1), 54-56. doi:

10.1097/01.NEP.0000000000000427

Gilland, DG, Muirhead, LM, Toney, S, Coburn, CV. (2019) Building a workforce pipeline:

Development of an ambulatory nurse residency program. Nursing Management. 37 (July, 2019).

doi: 10.1097/01.NUMA.0000558520.60241.1f

Coburn, CV, Gilland, D, Owen, M., Amar, A. (2018) Ambulatory care education: Preparing

nurses for the future of healthcare. Nurse Education Today. 66 (July, 2018), 79-81. doi:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2018.03.015

Owen, M, Garbett, M, Coburn, C., Amar, A. (2017) Implementation of deliberate practice as a

simulation strategy in nursing education. Nurse Educator. 42 (6), 273-274. doi:

10.1097/NNE.0000000000000371

Dr. Coburn’s educational focus is on ambulatory nursing and clinical-academic partnership for education of undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate nurses in a domestic and global context. She advises students for and participates in courses for the Doctor of Nursing Practice program, coordinates undergraduate courses related to Primary Care, Ambulatory Care  and Population Management Nursing, and leads undergraduate student trips to an underserved island in The Bahamas.

Dr. Coburn is a co-investigator for a Health Resources and Services Administration grant for an academic-practice partnership in primary care. Globally, she has been Principal Investigator (PI) for a collaborative student initiative around breast cancer education in Eleuthera, Bahamas, and Co-PI for another student initiative for a community assessment of non-communicable disease management in Eleuthera.