About
Mei-Ling Yu joined the AB nursing faculty in 2022 as Assistant Professor of Nursing and the course director for Health Assessment, the foundational BSN course in clinical examination, history-taking, and patient-centered communication. She came to AB from a faculty appointment at the Yale School of Nursing, where she had also completed her M.S.N.
Yu is a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP-BC) with twelve years of clinical practice — primarily in indigent-care community clinics in New Haven, Connecticut, and Buffalo, New York. She holds an M.S.N. from Yale (2012) and a B.S.N. from Cornell University (2008), where she was a Tradition Fellow.
At AB she teaches across the BSN curriculum and continues to practice clinically at the Davis Memorial Hospital Family Practice Clinic in Elkins (Mondays, half-day). She is the BSN program's simulation faculty and the lead developer of AB's standardized-patient bank — currently 22 trained community members from across north-central WV.
Education
- 2012M.S.N., Family Nurse Practitioner — Yale School of Nursing. Concentration in primary care of medically underserved populations.
- 2008B.S.N. (Tradition Fellow) — Cornell University. Dean's Honor Roll all eight semesters.
Teaching
Yu is the course director for Health Assessment and also teaches in the senior community-health clinical sequence.
- NUR 215Health Assessment & Clinical ReasoningA 4-credit sophomore-year course (lecture + 60-hour clinical lab) covering the head-to-toe physical examination, focused history-taking, documentation, and patient-centered communication. Course director.
- NUR 320Maternal & Newborn Health NursingCo-instructed with Dr. Howard.
- NUR 350Health Disparities & the Social Determinants of HealthA 3-credit junior-year elective on the social, economic, and political contexts of health in Appalachia and beyond.
Practice & Scholarship
Yu's practice and scholarship center on health equity, the patient experience of care among marginalized populations, and the integration of trauma-informed care into BSN curricula. She is a co-investigator on Dr. Howard's HRSA NEPQR grant and the lead developer of the AB BSN program's required trauma-informed care module.
A native Chinese speaker (Mandarin and Cantonese), she also provides voluntary medical-interpretation services at the Davis Memorial Hospital ED, on call for non-English-speaking patients.
Selected Publications & Presentations
- 2024"Trauma-Informed Care in the Undergraduate Nursing Curriculum." Nurse Educator.
- 2023"Language Concordance and the Therapeutic Alliance." Journal of Transcultural Nursing.
- 2022"What I Learned in a Free Clinic: An Educator's Reflection." American Journal of Nursing.
- 2025Plenary, AACN Master's Education Conference, "Patients We Have Failed to Hear."
Honors & Service
- 2023AB Faculty Early-Career Award.
- 2020Yale School of Nursing Excellence in Teaching Award.
- 2018ANCC FNP-BC Re-certification with Distinction.
- 2008Cornell University Tradition Fellow.
A health-assessment course is not about the head-to-toe exam. It is about teaching a 19-year-old that the first 15 minutes of a clinical visit is sometimes the only chance a patient has been heard all year.— Mei-Ling Yu, MSN, FNP-BC
Beyond the Classroom
Yu is a serious classical pianist (she gave a chamber recital in Funkhouser Auditorium in spring 2024), a long-distance road cyclist, and a volunteer ESL tutor at the Barbour County Public Library.
She lives in downtown Philippi and is an active member of the international student community at AB; she co-advises the AB International Student Network.