Tonya L. Shuffler

Biography

Dr. Tonya Shuffler taught adjunct clinical courses at Western Carolina University for several years prior to moving into a full time position in the Fall of 2016. She earned her DNP with a Family focus, as well as her MSN-FNP, from East Tennessee State University. Dr. Hensley is from Madison County where she started her nursing career in the CNA program during high school. She then earned an associate degree in nursing at AB Tech and a BSN from Lees McRae College. Dr. Hensley has a wide variety of nursing experience from OB care to family practice to home health and hospice. During her NP career her love has been school-based health. She helped start and ran a rural school-based health center for five years before moving into a position doing school-based telehealth. She is currently teaching in the family nurse practitioner program and focuses her practice in rural school-based telehealth and corrections health.

Education

• DNP, East Tennessee State University, Family Nurse Practitioner
• MSN, East Tennessee State University
• BSN, Lees-Mcrae College

Teaching Interests

Dr. Shuffler enjoys teaching new FNP student in advanced physical assessment, diagnostics, and office procedures. She also loves teaching pediatrics and adolescent medicine. She enjoys teaching seminar and residency classes for second year students as they go out into practice. Dr. Shuffler has precepted her FNP students in pediatrics at her clinical telehealth practice. She also enjoys finding ways to use telehealth and virtual technology in the classroom to allow students to see how technology will change how they provide care in the future.

Research Interests

Dr. Shuffler’s research and grant funding has focused on childhood obesity treatment and increasing physical activity in schools. She enjoys research related to school health (relationships with teachers, administration, school nurses), childhood obesity prevention and treatment, School-Based Health Center impact on health and education, impacts telehealth in schools, school nurse attitudes of telehealth, corrections telehealth, and tele-mentoring with NP students.