Reporting for Duty: Meet Your INANE 2025 Correspondent!

Hello, INANE conference attendees! My name is Melissa Anne DuBois, BSN, RNC-OB, and I am delighted and honored to serve as the live conference reporter for INANE 2025!

While my journalism experience is, shall we say, “nascent,” my extensive background as a perinatal nurse has equipped me with an unwavering commitment to sharing vital information. I am a proud alumna of the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (2006), and my career has navigated the full spectrum of perinatal settings—including labor and delivery, postpartum-newborn, high-risk obstetrics, outpatient OB-GYN, homebirth, and postpartum home health. I’m a passionate childbirth educator and lactation counselor, and currently teach classes with BabiesInCommon.com. I also co-host the Nursing the Nation podcast with my PhD colleague and fellow conference attendee, Jamie Bourgeois.

I am currently pursuing my PhD at the UMass Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts. I recently completed my coursework and will take my comprehensive exams in September. For my dissertation study, I am planning to conduct a qualitative descriptive study interviewing labor and delivery nurses about the emotional, physical, and professional consequences of witnessing disrespect and abuse in maternity care (“obstetric violence”) in the United States. I hypothesize that this phenomenon represents a unique catalyst for moral injury and secondary traumatic stress in this specialty. I live in Central Massachusetts with my husband and three young children, enjoying camping, hiking, coaching youth sports, crafting, and providing percussion and vocals for my family band, One T Family Tree. So don’t be shy—I look forward to connecting with all of you at the conference! Please find me to say hello!