Passion, advocacy lead to doctorate for Hawkins

The newly certified Dr. Kenneth “Kent” Hawkins never planned to return to school. After earning his associate degree in 2009, bachelor’s degree in 2013 and master’s degree in 2017, Hawkins felt satisfied.

It became a running joke of sorts between Hawkins and his friend, Dr. Shonda Phelon, chair of graduate nursing at Mississippi University for Women.

“Over probably the last seven years, Shonda has told me, ‘You need to get your doctorate,’” Hawkins said. “And I fought her tooth and nail and told her I wasn’t doing it.”

To understand his decision to relent and get his doctorate, one must go back a bit to his time in Nurse Practitioner school.

Hawkins’s preceptor, a mentor who supervised his clinical rotations, was the vice president of the Mississippi Association of Nurse Practitioners (MANP). Founded in 2014, the group provides legislative advocacy and educational and networking opportunities. She encouraged Hawkins to get involved with the group, and he took to it immediately. It was actually through MANP that he met Phelon as well.

After years of being involved with the organization, and doing all manner of advocacy work within the state, he consistently heard one phrase more than any other, “You’re not a doctor.”

“I don’t want to be a medical doctor,” he said. “If that’s the path I wanted to take, I would have taken it 20 years ago, not the nursing one, and I have zero regrets taking the nursing pathway.”

The idea of getting his doctorate was further cemented in 2023 when the executive board of MANP came to him and asked him to serve as vice president, a position that transitions into the presidency after two years.

“I walked out and called Shonda, and I was like, ‘Okay, I’ve got to do this.’” he said.

Phelon was ecstatic and helped him navigate the appropriate paperwork to get started.

However, the decision to further his education did not absolve Hawkins of his other responsibilities. He was already a practicing nurse practitioner. Hawkins now had to manage a full-time job on top of pursing his doctorate.

He took it a step further, however, partnering with another nurse practitioner to open their own clinic in Hernando.

“I’d had people tell me to step out and open my own clinic, but maybe I didn’t have the courage enough just to step out and do it,” Hawkins said. “Then some things happened at my previous job, and the next day, Tiffany, my partner, texted and said, ‘Hey, I’m just opening a clinic, and I need help.’”

The two met and the hour lunch turned into four hours. BBy the end, they had a clear path forward.

Now Hawkins is his own boss, in a manner of speaking that is.

One of Hawkins’ greatest passions, and the subject of his doctoral project, is full practice authority for nurse practitioners.

Broken down to its simplest form, full practice authority would give nurse practitioners the ability to practice within their field without requiring oversight agreements with physicians.

Under current regulations, nurse practitioners must sign an agreement with a medical doctor . They have to pay the doctor to sign off on charts every month, as well as to continue the collaboration. An added hinderance is that the nurse practitioners can only offer the services offered by their collaborator. That means if a nurse practitioner specializes, but if there is no collaborator within the set distance that offers those services, they cannot offer them either.

This is where full practice authority would come into play.

“That doesn’t mean we’re going to go out and do anything crazy, like we’re not doing surgery, we’re not doing all this crazy stuff, but it’s breaking that connection to where nurse practitioners can go further into the state, more into those rural areas,” Hawkins said.

His friend, Tabitha Flowers Arrington, who is also a student in the DNP program at The W, is facing this issue first-hand. Despite having the proper credentials, she cannot offer specific services in her hometown due to the lack of a collaborator.

“I know I talk about her a lot, but Tabitha grew up in Clarksdale, in the Delta, and that is a healthcare desert down there. She wants so bad to go and do a psychiatric care clinic down there a couple days a week, but there’s not a psychiatric collaborator within 75 miles.”

Hawkins believes that with the proper amount of advocacy and educating the public on what it is that nurse practitioners actually do, the goal is not at all out of reach.

Phelon believes if anyone can do it, it is Hawkins. He left a lasting impact on The W’s program, and she has no doubt that he will do the same through his position with MANP.

“Kenneth Hawkins is an outstanding DNP graduate and Nurse Practitioner whose compassion, leadership and dedication to others have left a lasting impact on faculty, classmates, patients and the nursing profession,” she said. “His commitment to excellence, humble spirit and passion for improving healthcare truly reflect what it means to be an exceptional nurse practitioner and leader.”