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Melba

“As a nurse, you teach your patients all day long, and they teach you. I started out teaching, looks like I found my way back to it.”

“As a nurse, you teach your patients all day long, and they teach you. I started out teaching, looks like I found my way back to it.”

- Melba, RN, MSN, FN-BC

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2003
  1. Inspiration
    2003-2004

    Inspiration

    2003-2004

    A good friend was bitten by a spider, so I took him to the hospital. The Nurse Practitioner who helped him really took the time to explain what was going on. She fascinated me.

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  2. Education
    2004-2007

    Education

    2004-2007

    After deciding I wasn’t too old for nursing school (I graduated NYU with a degree in Dance Education years ago), I earned my BSN from Columbia University School of Nursing.

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  3. Work
    2007-2008

    Work

    2007-2008

    I worked in the Pediatric ER at New York Presbyterian Hospital while in graduate school, and on the set of the soap opera, One Life to Live. I was a medical consultant for the show and I took care of the toddler actors.

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  4. Education
    2007-2009

    Education

    2007-2009

    It was a Nurse Practitioner who inspired me, and now I was one, too—earning my MSN in the Family Nurse Practitioner program at Columbia.

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  5. Work
    2008-2011

    Work

    2008-2011

    Still working with One Life to Live, I also got experience in other areas of family practice: pediatric emergency, dermatology, gynecology, neurology, HIV/AIDS and substance abuse.

    More family practice specialties
  6. Work
    2010-2013

    Work

    2010-2013

    Now I help guys, ages 14-35, at the Young Men’s Clinic at New York Presbyterian Hospital. The clinic is a safe place for them, so they open up. It’s really rewarding.

    Becoming a Family Nurse Practitioner
Present
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        • The primary healthcare provider under a doctor. You can choose from several different specialty areas, work in a hospital or run your own practice.
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