I spent years teaching nurse practitioners how to care for patients, and then I became one. Breast cancer moved me from the clinician’s chair to the paper gown, and it taught me something my training never had: how quickly a symptom gets waved off, how often a woman is told that what she is feeling is simply part of treatment, or part of aging, or part of being busy.

That phrase, that’ll happen, is the one I heard most. It is also the one I have built a career on refusing.

Most women arrive at perimenopause with no vocabulary for it. They know something has changed. The sleep is different, the joints ache, the anxiety arrived out of nowhere, the brain fog makes them wonder what is wrong with them. Estrogen is the oil in the engine, and when it starts fluctuating, everything it was quietly lubricating begins to grind. Nobody tells them that. So they spend years being managed symptom by symptom by clinicians who, through no fault of their own, were taught almost nothing about menopause in school.

My work sits in that gap, and it runs in two directions. I see patients, and I train the people who will see the next hundred thousand.

What I do

Associate Clinical Professor and Specialty Track Director, Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program, The Ohio State University College of Nursing. I have taught at Ohio State since 2019 and have directed the AGPCNP program since 2022.

Founder and Nurse Practitioner, Empowered Wellness, a perimenopause and menopause practice serving patients in Ohio in person and virtually, and by telehealth in several other states.

Director of Quality Improvement and Risk Management, and Director of Specialty Clinics, The Columbus Free Clinic, where I have practiced since 2019. I am also Faculty Director of the Rainbow Clinic, Ohio’s only student-run free LGBTQIA2+ clinic, which I helped found.

Recurring women’s health contributor, Good Day Columbus on WSYX and MyFox28.

Education

• Doctor of Nursing Practice, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 2018
• MS, Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner, Rutgers University, 2014
• BSN, Seton Hall University, 2011
• BA, Communication Studies, Northwestern University, 2007

Board certified in adult-gerontology primary care nursing through the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Certified Global Breast Health Educator through Know Your Lemons. Licensed as an advanced practice registered nurse in Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Colorado and Oklahoma.

Recognition

• APEX Award for Publication Excellence, 2024, for writing on diversity, equity and inclusion
• Transforming Care Award, Whole Person Healthcare Champion, Equitas Health Institute, 2023
• Health Equity Scholarship Award, Faculty Mentor, The Ohio State University Office of International Affairs, 2023
• DIA Patient Partners Program Scholarship, Drug Information Association, 2024
• Outstanding Oral Presentation Award, Society of Student Run Free Clinics, 2023

Memberships

The Menopause Society. American Association of Nurse Practitioners. National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties. Association of Nurses in AIDS Care. Sigma Theta Tau. National Association of Women Business Owners.