Dr. Linda Heitman

She began her professional nursing career as a staff nurse in the critical care units at Southeast Hospital in Cape Girardeau. During her tenure at the hospital she worked in the Pre-Anesthesia Department and Cardiac Rehabilitation. Upon completion of her Master’s degree, she served as a Clinical Nurse Specialist/Case Manager and Regional Heart Center Coordinator. In 1998 she joined the faculty of the Department of Nursing at Southeast Missouri State University. She has served on the Faculty Senate, Benefits Committee, and as the charter President of Lambda Theta, the local chapter of Sigma Theta Tau, the International Honor Society of Nursing.

She developed and taught the Clinical Nurse Specialist option in the Graduate Program. She currently serves as Professor of Nursing teaching Critical Care and Nursing Research courses. Dr. Heitman also maintains certification as an Advance Practice Nurse, Adult Health Clinical Nurse Specialist, with the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

Through Heitman Consulting, LLC she has served as a consultant to the critical care units of Southeast Health and St. Francis Medical Center. She is a member of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses and Sigma Theta Tau, the International Honor Society of Nursing.

Dr. Heitman is also a reviewer for The Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing. Her research focuses upon critical care nursing, organ donation and transplantation and cardiovascular nursing. She has written several publications and has given international and national presentations on these topics.

She currently serves as Educational Advisor for Mid-America Transplant (MAT) in St. Louis. In 2017 she submitted a grant proposing the creation and development of an on-line learning platform to teach undergraduate nursing students about organ and tissue donation. Currently, she oversees provision of the platform to eight schools of nursing and 22 nursing faculty. The platform will be provided to over 1,000 nursing students this academic year. The future goal of this endeavor is to offer the platform to all 73 nursing schools in the MAT service region.