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Edwin-Nikko R. Kabigting ’13, MS ’16, PhD ’19, teaches patient care with an approach coming from the intersection of nursing and philosophy. He earned ��ñ�� degrees in both fields and said they’ve been the foundation for an award-winning nursing education career.

Kabigting is assistant professor in the Foundations in Adult Nursing Practice Department at Adelphi University. He earned the 2023 Nursing Education Award from the American Nurses Association-New York.

He is heavily influenced by the “humanbecoming paradigm,” which he learned from creator Rosemarie Rizzo Parse, who is a visiting scholar and professor in the Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

“What the paradigm speaks to is that the individual before you is not just a disease or someone to fill a checklist with,” Kabigting says. “Each patient is a unique co-creation with their own hopes and dreams. In the traditional medical model, someone is telling you what to do. With the paradigm, we focus on what’s important to them at this moment in time.”

In addition to a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Harpur College, Kabigting has four degrees and certificates from Decker, some earned while working as a nurse for Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and United Methodist Homes in ��ñ��.

“My love for teaching started at Decker,” he says. “It really began when I was a [simulation] instructor. I learned how to interact with students. I thought, at some point earlier, I’d go back home to New York City, but I stayed in ��ñ�� and found myself getting degree after degree because I believed in the educational mission and ��ñ�� felt like home.”