Faculty spotlight: Ashanti Coleman
Clinical Assistant Professor Ashanti Coleman teaches Adult Health and Health Assessment, two courses that she has a unique experience
and perspective to teach, as well as Foundational Skills. A graduate of the Loewenberg
College of Nursing, Coleman had two strokes by the time she was 40, the second of
which was misdiagnosed by a doctor who sent her home with a life-threatening tear
in her carotid artery.
As a stroke survivor and nurse practitioner in a pain clinic, Coleman knew she was experiencing more than a migraine even though that is what the neurologist, who had treated her first stroke, had determined. She was released after days in the hospital and the misdiagnosis. That night, she went to a different hospital after experiencing unbearable pain in her neck that felt like something was tearing. Her right carotid, one of two major sources of blood to the brain, was ruptured with 50 percent blockage. She needed emergency surgery.
The American Heart Association created a video to recognize her as a survivor of two strokes. Hear the first hand account of her and her husband.