Recognizing Outstanding Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants in Hampton Roads
Elise French, NP
Riverside Medical Group, Partners for Women’s Health Care
In a scrapbook at the home of Elise French’s parents is a photograph of her as an 8-year old, ready for trick-or-treat, dressed in the traditional red cape and white cap of a nurse. It was much more than just a Halloween costume, she explains. “I always wanted to be in medicine,” she says. “I knew it as long ago as I can remember.”
After graduating from high school, she enlisted in the Army reserves, and became a respiratory therapist. It was rewarding, but lacked the hands-on experience of caring for patients that she yearned for. She ultimately graduated from the University of Florida in 2002 with a Bachelor’s in Nursing.
Her marriage brought her to Hampton Roads, and an opportunity to care for open-heart surgical patients at Riverside Regional Medical Center. “I worked open heart for five years,” she says, “where I was very fortunate to have wonderfully supportive role models and mentors, who were willing to help me navigate my path through medicine.”
Like respiratory therapy, cardiac patient care was rewarding, but still didn’t allow her to see what she calls “the complete picture. We’d have patients for 24 to 72 hours, and then they were gone. I always felt a bit empty at the end of their care.”
Wanting to have more of an impact, French entered a Nurse Practitioner program at Virginia Commonwealth University, initially assuming she’d return to acute care. But when she took classes in women’s health, she realized that was where she wanted to be.
She’s been a Nurse Practitioner for nearly five years now, working with Riverside Medical Group’s Partners in Women’s Health Care. “It wouldn’t have been my first choice, had you asked me five years ago,” she admits, “but there is something wonderful about seeing a woman through her pregnancy. I first see them as new patients, do lab work, and see them throughout their pregnancies, from the simplest complaints to recognizing and working with physicians to manage high-risk conditions like hypertension, diabetes and pre-term labor.” A mother of two herself, French can also offer advice about some of the other logistics of pregnancy and delivery.
There’s something else she’s uniquely qualified to offer a particular sub-set of her patients – something that’s not taught in school, but of critical importance to these women. In Hampton Roads, many of French’s patients are wives of soldiers or sailors who may be deployed during the pregnancy and/or delivery. In an unfamiliar city, away from home and family, they’re often overwhelmed. “I tell them that my husband is also in the military,” she explains, “so I know how they feel. He was gone for most of my two pregnancies and much of my daughters’ first years at home. My patients really appreciate that I understand what it’s like to be doing this huge milestone in your life, alone.”
As to ‘the complete picture,’ she says, “Managing a patient through pregnancy gets me full circle with them, and also opens the door for a continued relationship over the years. In women’s health, I see patients from their early teens ‘til well into menopause. It doesn’t get more complete than that.”
The best thing about medicine, says Elise French, is that “you can never get bored.” It’s a lesson she tries to impart to the students she precepts each year. “I love working with them,” she says. “I expect them to work hard and know their stuff.”
And because there’s always more to know, and more ways to apply it, she’ll begin working on her PhD this August.
If you work with or know a physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner you’d like to nominate for a profile in Hampton Roads Physician, please visit our website – www.hrphysician.com – or call our editor, Bobbie Fisher, at 757-773-7550.
