Dr. Cynthia Pitter is a lecturer and coordinator for the MScN program at the UWI School of Nursing, Mona. Former Clinical Nurse Manager and Educator at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI). She is a researcher and has published on gender and human rights issues in midwifery practice, with emphasis on women’s health, Gender-Based Violence (GBV) respectful maternity care and fatherhood. She is on a mission to build capacity among nurses and midwives on these issues. She has successfully led the consultancy for the UWI/Faculty of Medical Sciences in partnership with the UNFPA European Union Spotlight Initiative in integrating violence against women and girls in the nursing and medical programs at UWI.
Her educational background includes having a MSc in Nursing Education and Advanced Cert. Nursing Administration from the UWI. She is a graduate Registered Nurse and Registered Midwife from the UHWI. She has just completed her doctoral studies in Gender & Developmental Studies with a focus on the gender implications for pregnant women subjected to GBV.
Her professional contribution is actualized internationally as a Trainor- of- trainers for WHO in preparing health care providers to response to violence against women and children. She is a trained Sexual and Reproductive Health Researcher and a member/scholarship recipient of the Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research, Geneva, Switzerland, a WHO initiative. She is a member of the Global Alliance for Nursing and Midwifery. She is engaged in programmes development for midwifery education in collaboration with the Global Network of WHO Collaborating Centre for Nurses and Midwives. As a writer for the National Council Licensure Examinations, she is involved in the process that assesses the safety of nurses to practice in the USA and Canada. She is an abstract reviewer for journals and conferences such as the International Confederation of Midwives, Sigma Theta Tau Nursing International and the International Journal of Childbirths. She is an editor for the International Journal of Community Nursing and Midwifery.
Regionally, she served as VP for the Caribbean Regional Midwives Association 2017-2020 and a member of the Omega Kappa Honour Society of Nurses which enabled her to connect and collaborate with midwifery leaders in the Region. She was one of two coordinators for the Young Midwifery Leadership programme in the English-speaking Caribbean, an ICM initiative.
She served locally as she represented midwifery at the executive level at the Nursing Council of Jamaica (2016-2020). She is a champion for the Best Practice Spotlight Organization at UWISON and is integral in the Nursing Now campaign to raise the status of nursing in Jamaica by assisting with their project on VAWG. She currently serves on the board for the Institute for Gender & Development Studies, UWI Mona and is also a Kiwanian. She volunteers at the Women Incorporation and serves as a director at the Jamaica Family Planning Association. She is also the midwifery representative for the PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing and Midwifery in the Caribbean at the UWI, Mona.
She is of the view that nurses and midwives confront situations in which the basic human rights of patients are violated and therefore, as part of their professional legacy, they have a responsibility to address health disparities as it relates to human rights.
She is married and is the proud mother of a 20-year-old princess, who is studying medicine at the UWI.
