Cheryl Parker, DNP, CRNA, RNC-OB

Cheryl Parker is the Director for the Doctor of Nursing Practice in Nurse Anesthesia Program at the University of Louisville. She is also an actively practicing obstetric anesthetist providing services with Obstetric Anesthesia Consultants at Norton Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Louisville.

Dr. Parker earned her BSN from Eastern Kentucky University and her MSN and DNP from Murray State University. She has been a nurse for 28 years, working primarily in the areas of women’s health, specifically: Postpartum, L&D, and NICU. For the last 14 years, her focus has been on Obstetric Anesthesia. She is a member of the AANA (American Association of Nurse Anesthetists), KyANA (Kentucky Anesthesia Nurses Association), SOAP (Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology), KyPQC (Kentucky Perinatal Quality Collaborative), and a long-standing member of AWHONN (Association for Women’s Health, Obstetrics, and Neonatal Nursing), where she served 2 years on the Public Policy Committee.  In 2020 she was instrumental in the submission and acceptance of KY-HR73; approving legislation to establish January 23rd as Women’s Health Awareness Day; and making Kentucky the 5th state in the nation to inaugurate an MHA resolution.

Dr. Parker’s publications include; a case report in JOGNN (Journal of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Neonatal Nursing), May 2015, entitled: An Innovative Nursing Approach to Caring for an Obstetric Patient with Rape Trauma Syndrome (RTS); in 2019 she served on AWHONN’s Evidence Based Guidelines- Revision Science Team, which produced the evidence-based clinical practice guideline entitled: Analgesia and Anesthesia in the Intrapartum Period, and in Oct 2020, an AWHONN Practice Brief and Podcast entitled: Lower Extremity Nerve Injury in Childbirth.

Education