184. Advancements in Parkinson's Care

Welcome, and thanks so much for

joining us today, Joan.

Before we get started, can you introduce yourself to our listeners? Tell us about your specialty and how you became an NP.

Of course.

My name is Joan Miravite.

I am a family nurse practitioner.

I have a doctorate degree in nursing practice as well.

But I actually started very low on the ladder of nursing.

I started out as a nurse's aide before I went to nursing school.

I did too.

You did? Yeah, absolutely.

I had applied to nursing school and I didn't know if I was doing the right thing.

So I signed up to become a nurse's aide for a bit and I loved it.

But before

that, I was a bio major and I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up.

My aunt told me about this new role, nurse practitioner, and this was back in like 1995.

And so... she worked at major hospital system that they were bringing on nurse practitioners.

And she said that they were, NPs were really respected and that these were nurses that were, that were masters prepared and they were, you know, writing orders and writing prescriptions and they were managing patient care.

And she thought that I'd be good at it.

So I applied to school and I went into an accelerated BSN program and then kept on going to get my family nurse practitioner.

But while I was working towards my master's, I was working on a neurology nurse surgery floor.

So I was very comfortable with neurology patients.

And as a bio major, my favorite class in all of my bio training was neurobiology.

So I was always like a neurology nerd, if you will.

Absolutely.