It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

I am a dual board-certified Family and Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner with extensive experience in emergency, critical care, urgent care and psychiatry.  I started my career in healthcare in 2002 and enrolled in a local nursing program where I graduated with my Associate's Degree in nursing. I spent most of my career as a registered nurse in the emergency room while I continued my education at Fort Hays State University, earning my Bachelor's Degree and then my Master's Degree as a Family Nurse Practitioner from Spring Arbor University in Spring Arbor, MI. After graduation, I started working as a Nurse Practitioner at a large urgent care center in southern Florida.

Mental health conditions are a common occurrence in the emergency room and urgent care, and these settings have shown me how necessary mental health care is. Emergency rooms and urgent care centers do not provide the necessary consistency that mental health care needs. They are designed to care for emergency situations and bridging care. Many patients need that consistency and do not have it, so they were my inspiration to further my studies and obtain a post-master's certification as a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner from the University of Miami. 

Every person has a story that they don't always tell, and we don't always ask. It is my job to listen to that story and help them turn the page.