Cover Feature
It’s funny how we can be so sure of the path we want to follow in life, and then something will happen that turns us in a completely different direction. Nurse practitioner Reanna Pickerign of Hillsdale Health & Wellness experienced just such a shift, and she couldn’t be happier about it.
“I was pre-law, I thought my whole life I’d be a lawyer. Then I met a nursing assistant and she was telling me that she took blood pressures and drew blood and talked to patients, and I thought it sounded like the coolest thing ever. I said, I’m through with pre-law— I WANT TO BE A NURSING ASSISTANT!” Reanna completed that training and began as a nursing assistant, and then, as she phrases it, “I just kept climbing.” She received her undergraduate degree from Lourdes University in Sylvania, Ohio, and continued on to graduate school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She is now a certified family nurse practitioner (FNP-C).
A SHIFT &
A NEW PATH A ROAD TO SELF-FULFILLMENT LED TO CARING FOR THE COMMUNITY. — By Melissa McCance—
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During the final semester at Case Western, the students were allowed to choose what they would do. Reanna and a friend moved to California where she did hospice and palliative care, a field that she loved. At the time, she thought she would remain in California, but family ties pulled her back to the Midwest. “My sister started having babies, and I just missed them—I missed my whole family. So, I was initially looking at jobs near Cleveland, but I saw this listing for a job in Hillsdale because I had opened up the search to some parts of Michigan as well.” After making initial contact with the hospital, Reanna had a very favorable first impression.
