My entire 23-year nursing career has been spent here at Vanderbilt as a part of Advanced Practice Nursing Teams. My current role is to serve as the Advanced Practice Team manager for the Pediatric ENT, Hematology/Oncology, PATCH, Sedation, and our Vanderbilt Children’s Ambulatory Surgery Center in Murfreesboro. The teams I serve are composed of some of the most dedicated, caring, committed APRN’s that provide excellent care to the children of our region in both surgical and medical subspecialties. Prior to this role, I worked clinically in both Pediatric Hematology/Oncology as a proceduralist and in Pediatric Gastroenterology.
During the Covid pandemic, the Advanced Practice Nurses on our teams have faced many challenges and our teams had to adapt to the fast-changing work and the needs of the hospital. I am happy to say they have risen to the occasion and have made me so proud as their leader. Our PATCH team in particular was asked to lead the work of Pre-procedure Covid testing prior to Anesthesia. To this date they have guided families and followed up on more than 24,000 Covid tests which has been mission critical to meeting our surgical and anesthesia volumes.
As a dually boarded Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, I thought that I would always remain clinical but have found that supporting APRN teams is my passion. Having the unique opportunity to serve, teach, and lead other APRN’s at a leading Academic Medical Center is an honor. I look forward to continuing to grow in this role beside many great mentors and leaders.
Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my family. I have been married to my husband Tracy for 25 years and we have three children, Greyson (20), Carter (18), and Emma (15). We are just trying to soak up every minute we have with them as they grow up so fast. We love trips to the beach or mountains and watching each of them play the sport they are passionate about- basketball and soccer.
