Premera RNHI

MEET OUR FELLOWS

TESTIMONIALS

What’s unique and special about practicing in a rural area?

  • “… you can see the impact that you are making. I came from Seattle previously and you’re kind of a speck among thousands of providers and I think it’s hard to see where you fit in or if you’re making a difference maybe but in your rural setting, you know the few other providers that there are and you see your patients at the grocery store and you see them at the gym … you kind of know how important you are to that community so I think that’s very rewarding.” – Hannah Heinonen, FNP, UW Premera RNHI ARNP Fellow at Harbor Regional Health (2022-2023 Cohort)
  • “In a rural area, you don’t have nearly the access to specialty providers that you do in a city so you have to necessarily practice at a higher level and at the top of your scope just because there isn’t anybody else. It forces you to be more proficient and intentional about learning opportunities and training opportunities…” – Matthew Johnson, FNP, UW Premera RNHI ARNP Fellow at Republic Medical Clinic (2022-2023 Cohort)
  • “Your patients are your community and you get to know them, you get to care about them, you know their family…their family knows everybody in the clinic and that’s definitely different from anything I’ve ever done in the medical field. It makes you want to learn more so you can help. You have to be able to offer a lot but … the community offers you a lot.” – Elaine Olbertz, FNP, UW Premera RNHI ARNP Fellow at Mattawa Community Medical Clinic (2022-2023 Cohort)

Is there something you wish more people knew about living and working in a rural area?

  • “The scale of the distance challenge that comes along with living in a place like Republic…and that varies depending on the small town that you’re in but it’s a 6 hour round trip to any big city.” – Matthew Johnson, FNP, UW Premera RNHI ARNP Fellow at Republic Medical Clinic (2022-2023 Cohort)
  • “I think I was surprised by how well I was able to stay in contact with all my friends and family through technology… I just really felt I talked to them more than I did previously because I really wanted to make sure we didn’t lose touch. It was great challenging myself moving somewhere nobody else knew me. I talked to a lot of people with different views… and I really liked that freedom to kind of restart in a way… find out what there was to do in Aberdeen and do it.” – Hannah Heinonen, FNP, UW Premera RNHI ARNP Fellow at Harbor Regional Health (2022-2023 Cohort)

What did you enjoy most about your fellowship year?

  • “Getting to do the fellowship has…eased that transition between being a full time student and being a full time practitioner. It also helped reinforce the fact that I’m going to be a student forever… this is an ongoing learning process that doesn’t ever end. In addition to that, having a dedicated person… support group of people who I can be like ‘I have no idea what I’m doing, what do I do?’ and they can can be clued in to the fact that they’re going to be supportive of me asking those questions… really took a lot of the stress out of what could have been a very, very stressful first year of practice.” – Matthew Johnson, FNP, UW Premera RNHI ARNP Fellow at Republic Medical Clinic (2022-2023 Cohort)
  • “Marking your progress… because they’re watching everything we’re doing, they’re making us take a look every so many months, at what skills we’re adding… so you can actually see where you were and where you’re going, which is really kind of cool because then there’s this measure of your progress over time. I had somebody to help me for 12 whole months… somebody who was, “I’m going to be there for you through this whole thing’ or multiple people in our case. We had an entire team… all the UW Premera fellowship team behind us. ‘You’re having trouble with this? Call us, we’ll find somebody to help you’… they wanted us to be successful at all turns.” – Melissa Mitchell, AGNP-PC, UW Premera RNHI ARNP Fellow at Republic Medical Clinic (2022-2023 Cohort)
  • “Too many grads are hyper focused on the salary; even though you’ll take a little pay cut, you’ll have a better work life balance.” – Greg Lucas, FNP, UW Premera RNHI ARNP Fellow at Harbor Regional Health (2022-2023 Cohort)