Speaker: Emily Brown
Please introduce yourself and what you do for your career.
Emily Brown: Hi my name is Emily. My pronouns are she/her, and I'm a family nurse practitioner working in LGBT Health.
Talk about your career journey and how you got to where you are today
Emily Brown: So the way that I got to my career is I was a women, gender, and sexuality studies major in college. My initial career goal was teaching sex ad or sexual health. I've always been really interested in comprehensive sexual health education. I then found out that in order to teach sex ed, you have to teach other subjects. I didn't want to do that. So I ended up working in HIV research and then doing HIV testing and counseling for teenagers. From there. I realized I really loved working directly with people so with patients. And then I enrolled in what's called a direct entry nursing programs. That means that I got my RN in one year and then directly matriculated into my Master's of Science in Nursing, where I also did a focus on LGBT Health. I've always been invested and interested in health equity. So, working within the healthcare system to make sure that folks get the care that they need. Specifically, folks who may be marginalized. As a queer person myself, I always wanted to do something that really helped my own community and focused on community-based you know, support and resources. So I wanted to make sure that I could provide L. G. B. T. Q. Health specifically. I'm in a specific and address the specific needs by, by the queer community
What does your day-to-day as a person in this profession look like?
Emily Brown: So in primary care, so that's really outpatient care. At the clinic I work at, I can see anywhere between 14 to 18 patients a day. Usually in 40 or 20 minute appointments. What I really like about my job is that people come in for all sorts of different reasons. So no day outside of the scheduling looks the same. I work Monday through Friday. I get all my weekends off. I never do overnight shifts. I did a little bit of hospital work in school but I realized it wasn't the right fit for me. So a typical day for me could look like giving someone education about diabetes, then moving on to see a patient to talk about their blood pressure, then chatting with someone who wants to start hormone therapy, so gender-affirming hormone therapy, to help them in terms of their gender expression. Then I could end up placing an I. U. D. For the next visit. Then the visit after that could be extracting a cyst. So really in primary care we try and do as much as we can before sending someone to a specialist. Especially when um working within a healthcare system where insurance can be a little tricky. And so yeah I really like having a set schedule while also getting to see so many different types of concerns that people bring to us at our clinic
What's your favorite part of your job?
Emily Brown: My favorite part of my job is working with patients, so working directly with people. My personal favorite type of visit to have with someone is when someone who's trans or non binary comes into clinic to start hormones. A lot of times for folks, they've been thinking about it either for years and haven't had either the access or the resources in order to start hormone therapy or they've just been, you know, nervous or maybe haven't, you know, figured out kind of what their gender expression is. And so those visits are always so exciting because people are so excited to be there and they're so excited to start you know, a medical treatment that really helps them feel at home in their bodies. And the fact that I get to help and be a part of that is like truly my life's greatest honor, like it is. I'm so grateful and I just feel so thankful that I get to help someone be their best self and that I get to help facilitate that. And partner with them in that decision making and journey. That is like truly the greatest thing ever.
Do you have any advice for students who aspire to be in your role?
Emily Brown: So I think somewhere where I differ from my coworkers and colleagues who went to medical school is that I did a second degree program. So I did a program where I didn't need to be pre med, or you know, take science during undergrad. So I think my biggest advice is that there are other avenues to healthcare outside of medical school. While medical school is a great and phenomenal option for some folks and a great fit for some folks, other people, you know, think about healthcare. in terms of your career is a little later down the line and just to know that even if you weren't premed or even if you didn't take AP Bio or AP Chem or whatever, there's still ways to work in healthcare. where having a humanities-based education is really valuable.
