Dr. Stephanie Johnson is a geriatric care specialist at Corewell Health Blodgett Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She also teaches various nursing courses at Hope College and works closely with nursing students and new graduate registered nurses.

At the start of her nursing career in 2017, Dr. Johnson focused exclusively on hospital nursing. She soon discovered that she enjoyed explaining and demonstrating complex nursing concepts to undergraduate nursing students and new graduate nurses, so she branched out into part-time college teaching, too — first for one semester at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids teaching an adult clinical course, and, starting in fall 2023, at Hope College.

She teaches sections of the nursing department’s introductory course. She also teaches Nursing Research Methods and mentors students doing research.

She holds a doctorate in nursing practice. In her doctoral project, she proposed an advance care planning tool for individuals who have dementia and their loved ones.

Dr. Johnson is a board-certified geriatric R.N. and is also certified as an adult-gerontology clinical nurse specialist. She is a member of the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists and a member of Sigma Theta Tau International – Kappa Epsilon, the nursing profession’s international honor society.

Areas of Expertise

• Dementia-specific population care
• Nursing advocacy and leadership
• Individualized communication with patients, families and interdisciplinary teams
• Systems leadership

Education

• DNP, University of Detroit Mercy, 2023
• MSN, adult-gerontology clinical nurse specialist, University of Detroit Mercy, 2022
• BSN, nursing, Calvin University, 2017

Outside the College

Stephanie lives in Wyoming, Michigan, and has a calico cat named Cora. In her free time, she enjoys baking, crafting, gardening, watching BBC miniseries, drinking tea and reading. She is a member of Grand Rapids International Fellowship and a board member of the Community Link outreach ministry there as well. As part of this ministry, she is collaborating with other healthcare professionals in her church to create a congregational health program working to meet the health needs of members of the church and the community.