My name is Kris, and I am an urgent care nurse practitioner (NP) with three daughters and a wonderful husband. I was born and raised in Europe and have worked just about every role in health care, from lab work, to emergency medicine, to nursing. I decided to earn my Master of Science in Nursing because I wanted to do more than provide care; I wanted to “solve the puzzle” — taking account of patients’ symptoms, hearing their stories, and using both to make well-informed diagnoses.

Traditional online, message board-based education does not work for me. Nursing@Simmons’ hybrid format with live sessions that I could take at home was an excellent fit, and having assistance with clinical placement was an added bonus!

My experience with Nursing@Simmons was exceptional. There are some truly amazing individuals teaching in the program. I never had a bad professor and respected them all for different reasons. My NURP 503 instructor was the best final professor I could have had; she perfectly tied the clinical aspect of nursing to the human side. My NURP 502 instructor, a former emergency room nurse, was amazing because she shared my background and explained things in a context that I understood well. While I’m not a writer, my NURP 507/508 professor took the fear out of the Scholarly Inquiry course and project! I could write wonderful things about every single professor I had — I enjoyed them all. The access we have to our instructors is a great opportunity, and I hope students take full advantage of the live session time.

I completed the Family Nurse Practitioner program on a full-time basis, which was demanding, but worth the investment. I enjoyed every course, foundational through clinical, as the program is designed such that each course builds upon the previous one. I especially appreciated the clinical decision-making courses (NURP 501A, 502A, and 503A). It was always a great part of my week to see our small group and discuss the experiences we’d had in clinicals that week.

I worked with the clinical placement team to help source my placement sites, and the team handled all of the paperwork, making my portion of the search straightforward. I had experiences in urogynecology, retail health, occupational health, and family practice. Going into clinicals, I did very well — recruiters at two of my sites contacted me after graduation!

With Nursing@Simmons, I felt prepared — not only for my clinicals during the program but also as a graduate now working as an urgent care NP. From the convenience of taking classes from a rigorous school at home, to the amazing Simmons faculty, I hope students take advantage of all that the Nursing@Simmons program has to offer.

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