His master’s thesis—which he worked on with Regis President Antoinette M. Hays, PhD, RN, then nursing dean and a mentor to Brown—focused on mental health differences among total hip replacement patients.
“When I worked as an RN at Fairlawn Rehabilitation Hospital, I noticed that people who were highly active before total hip surgery seemed to become depressed post-surgery, whereas those who had a more sedentary lifestyle overall seemed to be doing great,” Brown says. “It really piqued my interest.”
His research found an inverse correlation between pre-hospital physical activity and quality of life. Physically active patients experienced a sudden decrease in their mobility post operatively and that change negatively affected them even though the surgery had helped lessen their pain. In contrast sedentary patients were still inactive, but more importantly they were no longer in pain.
HOW REGIS SUPPORTS VETERANS
Regis College has a long history of proudly supporting veterans, service members, and their families—and for the sixth time in the past seven years, the university is designated a military-friendly institution in the 2022-2023 Military Friendly® Schools list.
The Center for Veteran and Military Family Services is an on-campus resource to advise eligible students how to access veteran education benefits, provide academic support and career advice, and host other programs such as financial education. Regis also participates in the Yellow Ribbon Program, which allows veterans to receive funds from the Department of Veterans Affairs for their unmet tuition and fees.
In 2021, Nick Lanier joined Regis as director of the Center for Veteran and Military Family Services. In addition to helping service members and their families achieve their higher education goals, he wants them to feel a sense belonging on campus.
“I am most interested in how we integrate our students who are militaryconnected into the larger Regis community,” says Lanier, a veteran who served from 1999-2012 including two deployments during Operation Iraqi Freedom. “The veteran experience is fundamentally a human experience.”
He adds, “The military is a perfect cross-section of the U.S. A college campus can be the place where everyone can come together to understand and discuss those experiences. And Regis can be the exemplar of how to do it right.”
To learn more, please visit regisma.me/veteran.
COMMANDING A PLAN
As Brown neared the completion of the NP program at Regis in 1998, it was time to plan for what would come next. He had found his niche in nursing, but a lifelong passion had taken a back seat for decades: becoming an officer in the military.
“Growing up, my friend’s father was in the Marines, and I became fascinated; I must have read the Marine Corps handbook cover to cover a dozen times,” Brown recalls. “I developed this intense desire to serve.”
But Brown’s father, an Air Force veteran and special education teacher, had other plans: college first. Though college led him to Worcester State and eventually Regis, Brown says it was finally time for him “to sign on the dotted line.” Shortly after graduating with his master’s degree, he received a Direct Commission as an officer in the U.S. Army. In August 1998 he began service as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps; his first post was at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where he worked at Brooke Army Medical Center in the Department of Family Medicine.
Later while at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, he was slated for deployment to Operation Iraqi Freedom, but a last-minute reclama by the hospital commander resulted in him working at the Internal Medicine Clinic for a year. He was then assigned as officer in charge of the McWethy Troop Clinic, which provides health care to all initial-entry training soldiers.
SELF-DETERMINED MISSION
As is typical with active military service, another move came a couple of years later when Brown became chief of primary care at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey.
Brown was also selected to attend the satellite course for Command and General Staff College at Fort Lee in Virginia. While there he drove to the University of Virginia campus—a visit that convinced him to apply for long-term health education and training. Brown was accepted for PhD studies and attended from 2009 to 2012. His dissertation related to the theme of his master’s thesis at Regis.
“I wanted to understand what motivates people to implement and sustain health-promoting behaviors, particularly as it relates to military personnel,” he says. “At Fort Sam I would see a lot of military retirees who had gone from top physical shape during their service to becoming unfit, overweight, and having poor health habits during retirement.”
Through his research interests, which focused on human performance optimization and injury prevention of military personnel, Brown specifically got interested in self-determination theory (SDT).
“Motivation is the process of initiating, directing, and sustaining a behavior, and it can come intrinsically from within the individual, or extrinsically from a source outside of the individual,” he explains. “Self-determination theory adopts a multi-dimensional perspective and distinguishes the different reasons why individuals are impelled to act. As a nurse practitioner I want to understand how to support patients’ autonomous self-regulation of health- promoting behaviors: not just becoming more physically active, but also making decisions about whether to eat the extra dessert.”
Brown explains the role of autonomy, competence, and relatedness as the basis for people to function optimally. “Per SDT, autonomy is the feeling on the part of the individual that they act with a sense of volition; for example, they self-endorse a behavior. Competence reflects the desire to feel effective and exhibit one’s competencies through activity. Relatedness involves a psychological sense of connection and alignment with others. We have a lot of relatedness in the military and call it ‘esprit de corps.’ We’re all working hard toward a common goal.”
In the service, he adds, behavior can be controlling. “If you don’t pass your physical fitness test and meet height and weight standards twice a year, you’re going to get flagged and be assigned to rigorous, early-morning physical training to get back into shape. If you fail to meet the standards, it could get to the point that you’re discharged from the Army. I think for many soldiers, once retired there was no external pressures to stay fit and if they had not internalized the benefit of a good diet and exercise, their health and fitness declined.”
BOOTS ON THE GROUND
Brown’s service in the military has brought him to six U.S. states and his current post in Germany. Each location has provided a unique cultural experience, he says, and he has had the opportunity to travel to nearly a dozen European countries with his wife Patricia E. Mastroianni ’93—whom he met at Regis and married in 1999—and their daughters.
In 2014 he deployed as the only FNP with service members of the 21st Combat Support Hospital in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Inherent Resolve for what he considers one of the most rewarding periods in his career.
“Getting back into direct patient care of servicemen and women was tremendously gratifying,” Brown says. “It was the first time in four years that my primary role was that of a provider, and I realized that I had missed the face-to-face interaction with patients. We had a fantastic team of doctors, physician assistants, nurses, and medics, and all the support staff.”
He has been stationed in Germany since 2019, serving as the chief of the Center for Nursing Science and Clinical Inquiry at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center after serving in the same role at Womack Army Medical Center, Fort Bragg. As an Army nurse scientist, Brown has been directly involved in 10 studies as a primary/associate investigator or mentor. Additionally, he has secured over $750,000 in funding for his research.
“I have really enjoyed the opportunity to work with so many excellent nurse scientists on multidisciplinary teams,” Brown says. “The Department of Defense TriService Nursing Research Program has been critical to the success of military nurse scientists and have supported research in areas such as force health protection, nursing competencies and practice, and leadership, ethics, and mentoring.”
Brown continues to put boots on the ground as he focuses his research on initiatives that improve force health protection. His latest line of research is investigating the role of neck muscle strength in decreasing traumatic brain injury risk.
And 2020 was a special year for Brown as he was promoted to the rank of Colonel. He was also named a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, noted for more than two decades of experience as a skilled clinician and nurse scientist serving in multiple leadership positions in clinical and operational environments. Brown holds the 9A Proficiency Designator, the highest recognition for professional excellence in the Army Medical Department.
He is one of only 52 active-duty Army nurses out of more than 3,000 to hold this designation, according to the U.S. Army. The designation recognizes Brown as a national expert in his field.
“I’d say my career has exceeded all my expectations,” Brown says. “I have been so blessed to work with so many talented individuals who selflessly serve our nation every day both here and abroad. It’s been a great ride, although I have one more assignment before I retire.”
He adds that he isn’t sure what the future holds after retirement, though it will likely include academia or research. “Nurses are integral to our health care system, so helping to mentor and develop the next generation of FNPs and nurse scientists would be quite gratifying. I will always remain thankful for the opportunities Regis provided me: a wonderful wife and the educational foundation for a nursing profession that opened so many doors.”