Elcie Thoby – Keynote Speaker

Mme. Elcie Thoby is a Registered Nurse with a specialty in Public Health, director of several Community Health Clinics in the North Zone (County) of Haiti, and Dean of the School of Nursing at North Haiti Christian University (UCNH). She is a busy Pastor’s wife and serves the spiritual as well as the healthcare needs of her parishioners.

Elcie earned her BSN from the Government University School of Nursing in Port-au-Prince and was one of six chosen from her graduating class to be part of a distance learning master’s level certificate program in Epidemiology and Population Health from John’s Hopkins University in the 1980s. With this training, Elcie was able to begin tracking chronic diseases in Haiti. She developed a “Culturally Sensitive Approach to Disease Management” that has almost conquered tuberculosis in Haiti. Her protocol has been applied to most chronic diseases in Haiti with significant success.

As the founding Dean of the School of Nursing at UCNH, Elcie implemented the government-regulated nursing program while adding enrichment in Rehab and Psych that is not in mandated coursework, identified the best clinical sites for nursing students, and received full accreditation for her program from the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education in Haiti within the first year. Most graduates pass government licensing exams at the highest levels among their peers.

A deeply devoted Christian, Elcie relies heavily on the Lord and models that for her students. As a researcher and scholar, she continues to search out the best ways to manage various health conditions and chronic diseases. As an educator, she works to identify the best lecturers and clinical instructors for her nursing students and continuously seeks ways to enhance their education and bring them up to date with modern science while maintaining the art of nursing.