If you asked me when I was five years old what I wanted to be when I grew up the answer likely would have been a professional soccer player. Even as I approached the end of my high school career, I truly had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I started as a business major, thinking that I would likely take over the family car sales business however, I quickly learned that it was not for me. I had the realization, after helping to care for my grandmother suffering from Alzheimer’s, that I wanted to pursue nursing school and be a caregiver and an advocate for those who needed it most!

I pursued my nursing degree and quickly got a job as an Emergency Room (ER) nurse. In no time, I fell in love with the fast pace, and felt very drawn to the higher acuity patients, I absolutely loved the critical thinking that was involved. It wasn’t until I changed jobs and began working at a level-one trauma center that I realized I wanted to do more. I remember this day vividly, I was pregnant with my first child, working as the primary trauma nurse in a busy tertiary care hospital in Philadelphia. A patient suffering a gunshot wound to the chest presented by emergency services in severe extremis, at the point of death. The patient was taken emergently to the operating room located in the ER, and we all got to work. I worked on line placement and implemented the rapid and massive transfusion protocol while the trauma surgeon and residents placed bilateral chest tubes and then proceeded with a resuscitative thoracotomy in the emergency department.

I stood at the head of the bed, working and watching everything, staring into an open chest. I muttered the words “wow” to myself. My co-worker beside me was worried I was going to pass out and asked me if I was okay and I looked at her and responded, “I am absolutely fine.” It was that day that I realized, I wanted so much more than what I was doing right now, I was an adrenaline junkie when it came to health care, and I desired more!  I wanted to know and do as much as my nursing license would allow, and a few weeks later, I applied to the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program at Thomas Jefferson University with the goal of one day working in Trauma-SICU or another critical care area.

My education was amazing; I felt so lucky to have the rotations and preceptors that I did. I rotated through a high-acuity Surgical trauma ICU and a high-acuity trauma service where I was encouraged to be independent and use my clinical judgment to care for patients. I learned to place central lines, arterial lines, and chest tubes, amongst many other procedures. I will never forget the experiences I had, and to this day I know that my preceptors, by pushing and challenging me, are the reason that I am the provider that I am today. 

During my schooling, I gave birth to my first beautiful daughter, and right before I graduated, I was pregnant with my second. I accepted a job in a high acuity level 2 trauma center prior to graduation with plans to stay after my maternity leave ended with my second child. Training was fast and furious, but I loved every second of it! What I also loved is that at the end of the day, my body wasn’t as tired and sore as it was working a 12-hour shift as a bedside nurse, I was working hard, but in a different way.

After three years of working in trauma, I was offered a position as a Medical Critical Care Nurse Practitioner closer to home. Trauma is my passion, but as my family continued to grow (at this point, I was pregnant with my third baby), they soon became my passion, and I realized that I needed to make this change for them. I am now the happiest I have ever been both personally and professionally. I work at a community hospital as a Critical Care Nurse Practitioner in a busy intensive care unit.

A typical day for me starts around 6:45 am with sign-out starting at 7 am from the night shift team. Our service covers 24/7 with three nurse practitioners during the day, two at night, and an attending physician. After sign-out, we split up the ICU list of patients and begin our day.  Our attendings give us a lot of freedom and autonomy, and we begin our day with pre-rounding. Caring for our patients includes ventilator management, ordering and amending medications, interpreting, and acting on laboratory and imaging results, speaking, and updating patient and family members, collaboration with consultants, procedures such as arterial lines, feeding tube placement, central and dialysis line insertion, comprehensive rounding with the ICU attending and pharmacists, and determining disposition for patients. We also carry a pager and respond as the team leader for all emergency calls outside of the ICU, including rapid responses, stroke codes, and code blues. In addition to all of those things, we also evaluate patients for admission in the emergency department as well as respond to consults on the floor from our hospitalist colleagues. I love the autonomy that comes with this position, and the range of patients that we have the honor and privilege to care for and learn from. Not only do I love my job, I love the work-life balance that it gives me that I don’t feel I had as a bedside nurse.  

My team is like my family, and I have learned so much from them in my time here.  In addition to running the ICU we are also the leaders of the Rapid Response and code team and wear many other hats in the hospital.  Becoming a nurse practitioner has changed my life and aside from marrying my husband and giving birth to three of my best friends, it is the best decision I have ever made not just for me, but for my family!

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SPECIALTY PAGE	COLLECTION	CONTINUING EDUCATION
Nurse Practitioner	Master Physical Assessment Skills	Advanced Practice CE