Cynthia Tomcanin Rost, DNP, RN

Dr. Cindy Rost is an assistant professor who specializes in both Population based community health and behavioral health nursing. A nurse for 33 years, she has been involved in community health nursing since 1999. As a Healthcare Facilities Quality Examiner (HFQE) since 2005, she has been responsible for licensing group homes in the Pittsburgh Area for the Commonwealth of PA Dept. of Health. Moving on to become a Community/Public Health nurse for the Commonwealth, she was given responsibility for numerous tax dollar funded incentives aimed at population health. Since coming to Duquesne, it has been she has worked with community partners in all walks of population-based health. She lectures on community and behavioral healthcare to undergraduate students, and has taken clinical groups to diverse settings such as soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and clinics run by charitable organizations. Currently, she is partnering with other faculty and administrators to develop a population health community clinical experience. In the fall of 2014, Dr. Rost developed "Public Health Fridays" and brought experts in all phases of Public and Community Health into the classroom to immerse junior nursing students with information about Healthy Communities.

Dr. Rost is an alumna of Duquesne University, first with a B.A. in Speech, Language and Theater Arts, then a B.S.N. from the School of Nursing earned in 1984. She earned her M.S.N at California University of Pennsylvania in Nursing Leadership and Administration, where she presented her capstone project "Retention of Community Health Nurses using a Mentoring Model" to DOH officials in Harrisburg PA. She earned a Doctor of Nursing Practice at Carlow University in 2017 after researching thr effects of nursing interventions of the self-efficacy of African American hypertensives, winning third place with her graduate consortium presentation.

A member of the ANA, NLN, PNA, APHA, STTI, APNA, and ACHNE, Mrs. Rost has been a past member of the Washington County Child Death Review Team, the Mid-Mon Valley Tobacco Free Coalition, the American Association of University Professors, the National Speech Language and Hearing Association, the Pennsylvania Mental Health and Substance Abuse Service, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Peer Support Advocacy Network (PSAN) in Pittsburgh and Duquesne University's own CETR strategy committee as the Deans appointee.

• DNP, Carlow University, 2017
• MSN, Nursing, California University of Pennsylvania, 2012
• BSN, Nursing, Duquesne University, 1984
• BA, Speech Pathology/Psychology, Duquesne University, 1980

• Death and Dying in the Community
• Mentoring the New Community Health Nurse Using a "Human Becoming Model"
• Successful Transitions from Chronic Inpatient Mental Health in to the Community
• Self-Efficacy in the African American Elderly