I have been a registered nurse since 1997. Once licensed and official, I started working in the cardiac critical care unit (CCU). CCU was fast-paced. It was wildly interesting and the patients back then came to us prior to any cardiac interventions, making it a complex and demanding work environment. While there, I had a mentor nurse named Jo Ann. Jo Ann was a long-time RN, salty and unwilling to take any gruffness from the doctors who came into the unit. She was patient and explained the different IV drip medications we used, the intraortic balloon pumps, and bedside dialysis. She also taught me how to wash a patient’s hair when they were on a ventilator and why it was important to always treat patients like they were family, even when they were unconscious. She was like the big sister I never had. Sadly, Jo Ann passed away with lung cancer my third year in the unit. She gave me a peace lily when she got sick, saying “you need to take this, I’m not dead yet.” I kept it alive for 11 years.
Over time, and under the guidance of mentors like Jo Ann, my career progressed. I took on more responsibilities and leadership roles, including charge nurse and ACLS instructor. I worked hard, often four 12-hour shifts a week, rotating nights and days. I saw my colleagues going back for their NP degrees, but felt unprepared to take on the role of diagnostician. I ended up choosing to get a Masters of Arts in Organizational Management and took a job as a database administrator at the hospital. I missed the unit dynamics some, but it was the right decision for my family that was starting to grow.
When I was 39, I finally felt ready to go back to school for an MSN. After I graduated, I found a position and began my career in family medicine. To say the jump from an RN to an APN was significant is a wild understatement. While I felt like I would eventually be good at my new role, I was worried about what support I would get. I had seen a lot of NPs left to their own devices; I had heard doctors lament how undertrained we were as a whole. I had even read an article by a former Tennessee Medical Association president about how ill-prepared we were for patient care.
I was not a new nurse; I had worked in critical care, IT, city schools, and now I was the person in charge of diagnosing and treating disease. Still, it was a chasmic leap for me. I was used to thinking critically about what would be going on with a critically ill patient, a child in our school, or even an adult in the school. I was new to applying that knowledge and was now responsible for helping prevent disease progression and treating disease that was chronic. Maybe it was just my personality, but I felt overwhelmed. What made the experience less anxiety-inducing was that once again, I had women mentors. Specifically, I had a slew of amazing women MDs who took me under their wing and taught me how to provide quality health care to the people who trusted me enough to see me.
As I soon learned, though I had the “people” part of the role down well, there are just some things that only a mentor can teach you. The doctor who hired me for my first job after getting my MSN degree was a family practice physician who was a stickler for details. She made sure I paid close attention to my documentation, made my medication choices per guidelines, and read previous notes of hers. In turn she read all of my notes and made recommendations and asked questions so I would know how to code appropriately for the work done. She also met with me in the mornings before patients arrived so we could discuss the patients coming in for that day. She knew them well and gave me useful insight into their lives and histories.
One of the most valuable things this mentor did in our time together was help leverage my existing skills. My years of nursing in myriad capacities gave me the emotional intelligence to approach people with compassion, seeing them as human beings deserving of respect and dignity. I had the unique ability to put people at ease so that we could discuss very difficult and sensitive topics. My mentor and I worked together to find solutions that were creative and not always readily apparent because we trusted one another to be honest about how our patients were doing, what their needs were, and what they could afford. I worked with this mentor for a little over a year. Unfortunately, her patient roster was small, so I ultimately decided to move on from her practice.
My next position was with another woman doctor. This doctor was big on family time — she offered me a four day a week position, which enabled me to spend one day off a week with my family. Because of our shared values, I ended up working with her for 8.5 years. She is board-certified in internal medicine, and when I met her was old enough to have had office patients, hospital rounds, and patients in the nursing homes and local Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF). She had me round on the SNF patients, giving me valuable management experiences with more acute-type care that wasn’t as simple as an office visit. She is still one of the smartest women I’ve ever met and made a lasting impression on my practice and how I approach patient care. She routinely emphasized physical exams and understanding how a good exam tells the best story. “Why did you order this imaging? What will you do with the results?” She also made comments in passing that were helpful, like “Don’t forget that if someone is on amiodarone they need thyroid tests” and “Remember that metformin will reduce B12 absorption.” Further, she left articles on my desk every day for me to read, sometimes stacks of them — and she still drops them off at my new job when she stops by to say hi to her son, who’s now one of the gastroenterologists I work with.
Eventually, right when COVID hit and we got a new EMR, this mentor retired. I ended up taking a job with my current employer — it’s a private GI practice that her husband started and where her son also chose to work. My current managing physician partner is another amazing woman doctor. All of my physician bosses have been quick to educate and give resources to learn this new role. However, having another woman in the office just makes the environment different. Having someone who understands what life as a mom, clinician, and wife is like, and the sometimes special issues that crop up, really is priceless. Being able to commiserate about someone treating you differently because you are a woman is a relief. She gets how irritating it can be for someone to call you ‘honey’ or assume you aren’t going to know what you’re doing because of your gender. She advocates for me in these instances because she knows what it’s like to be underestimated as a woman in medicine.
Looking back, it’s clear I have been blessed to have wonderful people, especially women, in my corner throughout my career. These mentors have heard me, trusted me, and continue to help me develop as a person and clinician. Their support and guidance allows me to wake up every day and put into the world what they have given to me. I’ve even taken it upon myself to become a mentor in my own right, precepting RN students and APP students throughout my career.
I firmly believe that an APP is only as good as the mentors they have. If we want to continue providing quality care to patients, it is crucial that there are willing physicians and seasoned APPs out there to teach us and help us grow. We are not each other’s enemy. Together, we can all become better clinicians.
Who are some of your mentors? Shout them out and share what they’ve taught you in the comments!
Allison Falin is a nurse practitioner in Maryville, TN. She enjoys weightlifting, hiking in her nearby Smokies, and just being outside. She has practiced as a NP for 11 years and RN for a cumulative 27. She and her husband have three adult children and four dogs. She is on threads as @alliefnp. Allison is a 2024–2025 Doximity Op-Med Fellow.
Illustration by April Brust
