“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.”
-Oscar Wilde
Education/Experience:
My earlier experiences working in behavioral research on HIV prevention led me to a career in nursing. I attended the University of CA - San Francisco where I finished my master’s degree in nursing in 2008.
I trained both as an adult primary care nurse practitioner and also as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, which was particularly helpful when starting my first nursing job in a very busy ED in Washington DC. There I found myself gravitating towards psychiatric care and decided to practice mental health care exclusively.
Since that time I have worked in mental health in various roles and settings, both inpatient and outpatient, in high acuity contexts as well as in primary care and prevention. I gained experience working with medically complicated/fragile patients and those with co-occurring substance use disorders. I've provided integrated behavioral health care to adult outpatients attending primary care clinics in CA, working closely with MDs, NPs and others, and across various specialties, in order to increase utilization and improve outcomes in behavioral health care. This work led me to one of my current interests in caring for healthcare providers themselves, whose mental health can often go overlooked.
Creativity:
I have taken classes through the Center for Bioethics and Health Humanities at CU Anschutz around the role of creative expression (writing and film in particular) as a means of understanding and processing health and illness, both individually and culturally.
I savor taking classes through Lighthouse Writers Workshop and enjoy attending film festivals whenever I can. I frequently refer to and cite books and films during patient sessions.
If I was not a nurse practitioner in mental health, I would aspire to be a writer or a journalist. I consume articles and journals related to narrative medicine, and have a writing practice in order to externalize some of the experiences I have had caring for patients. People who write down their thoughts and feelings experience numerous kinds of health benefits as a result. Writing can be a meaningful intervention for all of us!
Interests/Populations:
I am especially passionate about serving health care providers of all types, people in the perinatal period, and LGBTQI+ folks. For the last 4 years (2021-2025), I have worked in a group private practice that sees health care providers and trainees as our target population. I have completed training through Postpartum Support International and the MGH Center for Women's Mental Health. I started working in queer and trans mental health more than 20+ years ago by volunteering on a queer youth hotline.
In addition to these interests, I have worked with transitional age youth and college/graduate students in campus health and counseling centers, first in 2012 and most recently in 2024. My work with early-career healthcare providers and students unites my interest in role development/role transitioning; the process of "becoming" and growing into new versions of ourselves is a theme in my work.
Last but not least, I am passionate about the interface between providers and patients, and healthcare organizations and healthcare consumers writ large. I am especially interested in ways in which people cope with new diagnoses, with medical trauma, and with chronic health conditions. Correspondingly, I welcome treating patients with health anxiety, somatic complaints, and other symptoms spanning mind-body connections.
