My twitter tag line says, “Author, Nurse Practitioner, Patient Advocate & educator. I love what I do; and am thrilled to be doing it” which does sum me up pretty well.

I am an acute care nurse practitioner in cardiothoracic surgery, and my work, really is my life, and my love.
My job isn’t all that glamorous, but I do love it; because I care about my patients – and use whatever tactics I need (including nagging) to make sure they do well after surgery, and get to go back to their regular lives.

I feel privileged that I am able to take care of people during these critical periods of their lives (during/after major heart and lung surgeries) and I take it very seriously.

I also listen to my patients – and so many times, over the years, I kept hearing the need for more and better information, geared to their situations, in easy-to-understand terminology. They want someone to stress the parts that need to be stressed, because right now, they are facing something huge, frightening, and potentially devastating, so having someone give them the ‘Cliff Notes’ version can be helpful. But my patients also aren’t idiots – so they also want to know the rationale behind the medications, treatments, procedures and protocols. Just not all at once, sometimes..

So this is both the Cliff Notes, and the annotated works for Thoracic Surgery – for people to browse, read a bit, or come back for more in-depth articles and links to research.

But, it’s a big job, so I am welcoming and encouraging contributors for article submissions.