Melanie Cole, MS (Host): Welcome to Conversations with MIT Health. I'm Melanie Cole. In today’s provider profile, joining me is Allison Sherwood. She’s a family nurse practitioner and primary care provider at MIT Health. Allison, I'm so glad to have you join us today. Speak about your career path before becoming a primary care provider at MIT Health

Allison Sherwood, M.S.N, F.N.P.-B.C. (Guest): Thanks Melanie. In terms of kind of what brought me before working here, I was a nurse for over 11 years and a nurse practitioner for six years. My role started close to home as my mom became ill in my teenage years and I learned early on the opportunity that nurses have to affect change in quality of life and be at the heart of patient centered care. So then after nursing school, I worked as an AmeriCorps volunteer out in California. I worked in a homeless shelter and then from there went on to work in an emergency room setting. It was in those first couple of years that I learned that in the hospital setting or in other transitional settings, it was hard to really know what was going on with the patients and I was too curious. So then I started to work in a community health center and now most recently in primary care because I think seeing patients and families across the continuum is a lot more up my alley. I'm able to kind of understand where people are at and see them throughout their care and not be so curious as what happens after they leave the hospital.

Host: That’s so interesting and what a great reason for joining the team that way. So what does it mean. For the listeners, tell them what does it mean to be a family practice nurse practitioner? Talk about that family practice model of care if you would.

Allison: Sure, yeah. So family practice is a little bit unique in that you're a general practitioner but for patients throughout the continuum. So many call it womb to tomb or birth to the grave. So understanding that model of care for your youngest patient could be an infant who you might see to seeing someone towards the end of their life. For me, I love that being able to have that great diversity of practice and seeing people throughout their developmental stages. Moreover I think family practice is understanding a patient in context to what they could be to their families and communities. Here at MIT, it might be their family as defined by their roommates or their classmates. Everyone has many roles to serve either as a partner, a sibling, a child. Understanding people in context to what they are in their family I think helps me to provide best care for them.

Host: Let’s talk about your philosophy of care. What do you want patients to know about how you approach disease and wellness and caring for the whole person?

Allison: I think my philosophy is one of really just making sure I allow the patient to feel heard. The majority of the visit really in collecting the health history and understanding kind of what I mentioned in understanding who the patient is in context to their role either here at MIT, their role in their family, and their role in their community. I think when I get a better understanding of that and they're presenting symptoms I can get a better understanding as to what else could be going on, what they could be at risk for, and what things we need to start working on prevention strategies for.

Host: Really it’s such a great way to provide care. So how do you feel that your background and experience can be used to benefit this unique community, the unique community that MIT is?

Allison: So as I mentioned before, many different experiences both personal experiences and then my work experiences in many different kinds of settings. I think that experience in serving many types of patients from all different kinds of backgrounds allows me an opportunity to really understand the unique needs of what this MIT community is, a lot of which can be from many different parts of the world. Similar to what I did in the community health setting serving people here where they might be far from family or far from their community but trying to give them a sense of that while they might be at their most vulnerable state and feeling sick.

Host: What do you do for fun Allison? Tell us a little bit about your family and life outside of work. Something that your patients may not know about you that would make them smile.

Allison: I'm a huge exerciser. So I'm a soccer player. I was a pretty big soccer player in high school, a little bit in college. So getting my energy from lots of cardio exercises. I'm a big runner, biker, and swimmer. I've done a few triathlons that really give me a lot of energy. I love kind of competing with myself and just kind of seeing if I can beat my last time. More so I love the community of what running and some of those races could be and supporting each other. Also do a lot of running with my toddler. I have a 15 month old at home who keeps me very energized and a super supportive wife who allows me to further my career and continue this work.

Host: Well toddlers do keep us running, don’t they? Thank you so much for telling us about that. As we wrap up, what do you think about working at MIT Health?

Allison: So working at MIT Health has been amazing. I think the community feel, the global nature to the community here. I think the team centered approach has been awesome. So not just the team within MIT Health, but really feeling that the whole university is a team setting. Together we can continue to help the health and wellness of the community here and the greater goal, which is the health and wellness of the global community in a lot of the work that MIT students and faculty contribute to.

Host: Well, it certainly does. Thank you so much Allison for joining us and telling us about you and your philosophy of care and what you like about working at MIT Health. Listeners can visit Health.mit.edu for more information and to get connected to one of our providers. That concludes this episode of Conversations with MIT Health. Please remember to subscribe, rate and review this podcast and all the other MIT Health podcasts. . I'm Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for joining us today.