Traci Powell, MSN, PMHNP-BC, (MSN 2011) shared her story in the hopes that it will help others survive traumatic experiences. As a nurse for 29 years, she knew she wanted to help others but did not know how to help herself. After decades of trying to ignore the pain of growing up in an abusive home and being molested, Powell attempted suicide at age 46.

Following that experience, Powell decided she did not want to lose her life because of the horrible actions someone else did to her years ago. As a nurse practitioner in the neonatal intensive care unit at Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, she loved babies, but knew her passion was to work with women who had experienced trauma, like many of the mothers in the NICU.

So in 2017, Powell started a coaching business for sexual abuse survivors called “The Rebuilt Woman,” focusing on interpersonal relationships and peer support. In 2019, she enrolled in the post-master’s psychiatric-mental health certificate program at the UF College of Nursing. She graduated in December 2020 and opened her own practice the following March, specializing in trauma and complex post-traumatic stress disorder. She is certified in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR, and is a certified clinical trauma professional.

Powell said the UF PMHNP program’s dual focus on therapy and medication, instead of just medication alone, influenced her to enroll.

“I understand that women are often misdiagnosed, misunderstood and over-medicated, and I know how shame can often keep you trapped in a world of isolation and fear, but I also know that with the right help, true healing can happen,” Powell said. “My goal is to help women heal from abuse and trauma — rather than learn to manage the symptoms — in order to transform lives and, ultimately, families.”

Most of Powell’s clientele are working professionals. As a nurse who was striving for perfection and ignoring her own pain, she wants other health care providers to know that it is OK to not be OK.

“I tried to run away from my problems and felt that I couldn’t reach out for help, but after 53 years, I am living my purpose,” she said. “I am feeding my soul and feel blessed to watch women on their healing journeys. It is their journey. I am just here as a vessel to guide them through.”

Deanna Seymour’s, APRN, DNP, PMHNP-BC, (DNP 2016) 29-year nursing career has taken her to various inpatient and outpatient settings, but her love for children has remained constant. In 2010, Seymour decided to return to school to pursue an advanced degree.  After much soul searching and collaboration with colleagues, she decided to pursue a DNP degree at UF, specializing in the PMHNP track.

Following graduation, Seymour worked as an inpatient pediatric psychiatric nurse practitioner at Wolfson’s Children’s Hospital, where she spearheaded the first Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, crisis intervention group and worked on the consultation service.  After learning that UF Health had a DBT program, she moved to UF Health Jacksonville, where she focused on providing medication management and both individual and group DBT therapy for three years.  She specialized in treating children and adolescents with anxiety, chronic depression, suicidality, self-harm, trauma and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

On June 22, Seymour opened her own autonomous practice in St. Augustine called Seymour Behavioral Health Solutions. She considers her practice a “one-stop shop” for children and adolescents needing individual and group DBT therapies and medication management. She was granted permission to take her UF Health Jacksonville patient caseload with her and has started her private practice with a completely full schedule.

She said COVID-19 has exacerbated mental illness, especially for children.

“They feel isolated, depressed, many temporarily lost their support system of school and community,” she said. “I am very busy and will be for a while dealing with the aftermath.”

A mother of four sons herself, helping children and families is Seymour’s passion and she is excited for the freedom of having her own independent practice.

“It’s important to be able to pursue one’s interests and passions,” Seymour said. “There are so many things that can be done within the nursing profession. In my case, I chose to pursue DBT and provide robust therapy services to an underserved population.  As nurses, we are barrier busters. Being a doctorally prepared nurse is so important. It teaches leadership. Once you think of yourself as a leader, it’s hard to settle for less.”

Owning an independent practice is a recent development for Nicole Schultz, MSN, APRN, PMHNP-BC, (BSN 2009, MSN 2010) — one that may not have happened without COVID-19 and certainly not without the autonomous practice bill that passed in Florida last year.

Schultz was previously working at a small, team-based mental health practice in Melbourne, Florida. As the arrival of COVID-19 saw appointments being forced to move to the virtual environment, insurances began covering telemedicine. Schultz saw an opening to break away and form her own practice, called Mindful Psychiatry, that has continued to offer virtual visits for her clients.

“With Mindful Psychiatry, I have been able to provide care virtually without putting any patients in harm’s way,” Schultz said. “All of my patients love the flexibility and not having to drive for appointments anymore. It also provides better access to care.”

Schultz has partnered with her husband, Anthony, who runs the business side of the practice, including incorporating the best in technology, like a secure messaging system and online billing.

Schultz focuses on fully prioritizing patient care and provides individualized, personalized treatment for patients, while also examining the person as a whole to determine what is contributing to their mental health and wellbeing. She said her instructors at the UF College of Nursing prepared her with a comprehensive education.

“Across every discipline, there’s a difference in where you go to school,” she said. “At UF, we were taught to see every patient and client as a person first. There was an emphasis on evidence and research, which is an advantage because when you provide care, the evidence is always changing. There is real-life value in being part of the nursing program at UF because you are equipped to evaluate and integrate the newest findings into practice.”

Elizabeth Winings, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC, (BSN 2011, MSN 2013, DNP 2016) admits she never wanted to be a nurse. The daughter of a Gator Nurse — Gail Gaskins Lowe (BSN 1975) — Winings actually wanted to be a physician. While in undergrad at UF completing prerequisites, she researched nursing after a particularly difficult chemistry course. The result concluded in an application to the College of Nursing for the BSN program.

Her love for psychiatric mental health spawned from a conversation she had with faculty member Dr. Jo Snider, EdD, RN. Winings was in a residency program at the Malcom Randall Veterans Affairs Medical Center when she started noticing gaps in care. She said patients would open up to her after the care team left the room. For example, one patient underwent a leg amputation following complications with diabetes and asked her how he was supposed to adjust to life with only one leg.

These types of interactions led her to a conversation with Snider, who told her she was thinking like a psychiatric-mental health nurse and should consider applying to the graduate program.

After earning her MSN and DNP at UF, Winings worked at a psychiatric out-patient pediatric clinic for UF Health Jacksonville, where she became passionate about mitigating mental health problems for children.

Between 2018 and 2020, Winings co-owned a private practice in Jacksonville with a physician. When the opportunity presented itself through the autonomous practice bill to open her own practice, she jumped on it. Now she specializes in outpatient pediatric behavioral health through her practice Winings Wellness. One area that sets her practice apart from other mental health clinics is her certification in plant-based nutrition and training in lifestyle medicine.

“The most rewarding part of my job is being able to establish relationships with children and parents and then empower their own relationships within their families,” she said. “Joy and harmony are important components of my practice, and I reassure clients that I am a safe place to say whatever they want.”

Winings remains in contact with Snider and Professor Emeritus Jodi Irving and also credits other former nursing faculty, like Anna Schwait and Maureen Curley, for their encouragement and support through the program.

“Dr. Snider was the catalyst for me to consider a career in mental health,” Winings said. “All of the College of Nursing faculty gave me a sense of awe for the profession and helped me understand the history of the role and how I could contribute to it.”

Perhaps Gator Nursing’s most-seasoned psychotherapist is 83-year-old Ruth Dailey Grainger (Knowles), PhD, APRN, (MSN 1971), who still practices via telehealth four days a week — with no plans to stop!

Grainger has worked in private practice as a nurse psychotherapist for 45 years, currently living in Islamorada in the Florida Keys, that she calls her “paradise.” She specializes in treating post-traumatic stress, and has counseled individuals after natural disasters, like Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Andrew, and other traumatic events.

“I do not treat PTSD, because I do not consider it a disorder,” Grainger said. “I treat post-traumatic stress as a normal response to an abnormal situation.”

Like Powell, Grainger uses the EMDR therapy technique for post-traumatic stress and other concerns and has completed over 5,000 sessions since the early 1990s. She is very grateful to College of Nursing Professors Emeriti Jo Snider and Jodi Irving and the positive impact they had on her while in the master’s program at UF and afterward in her mental health career.

Grainger designed and implemented a baccalaureate program for registered nurses at Florida International University in 1972 and was the first nurse to have an ongoing monthly column in The American Journal of Nursing that lasted six years, and she was instrumental in bringing EMDR training to psychotherapists in Miami and the Florida Keys.

Grainger also said she is a firm believer in manifestation and that there are things we can do to bring about a personal goal by focusing on our thoughts and our desired outcomes but also “doing the work” to make our dreams come true.

“We have the power to turn our desires from the possible to the probable,” she said. “I live my life in a myriad of intentional ‘clean and healthy ways,’ as I plan to live to be 114 and will have a birthday party at my house in Islamorada! You are all invited to join the party!”