Joan Fleitas, EdD, RN

Sessions

• Psych 101 - Stigmas, Response and Resilience
• Real Life Issues - Life with a Nevus – for ages 8-12
• Psych 201 - Real Life Approaches for Parents
• Ask the Experts - Panel Session

Bio

Dr. Joan Fleitas has enjoyed an illustrious career as Associate Professor of Nursing at Lehman College of the City University of New York. She attended Charity Hospital School of Nursing in New Orleans, then Florida State University in Tallahassee, then Emory University in Atlanta, then Teacher's College at Columbia University in New York… as she says: “Phew!”

She has been working with children and teens in hospitals for over 30 years, all while teaching college students to be the best nurses in the world. She maintains an award-winning web site called Band-Aides and Blackboards, designed to give a voice to children with chronic illness or other serious medical conditions. “I developed the site to educate healthy students, educators, parents, and health professionals about what it's like to grow up with the burden of disease or disability on your back. Through narratives, poetry, imagery, a hospital tour, and hundreds of other interactive pages, I hope to sensitize them to the reality that the children and teens featured on the site are much more like other kids than they are different from them.”