Physician assistants, nurse practitioners and certified nurse midwives are health care providers you might see during your visits at UW Health. These providers are also referred to as advanced practice providers (APPs).
UW Health advanced practice providers who work in partnership with physicians provide high quality, patient and family centered care. Meet a few of the APPs here at UW Health:
Meet Amanda
“I am inspired by the power of humans and the importance of human interactions.”
Meet Claire
“Children face unbelievable challenges and traumas. I’m inspired to do this work.”
Meet Cory
“It has been absolutely life changing to watch these children with SMA make advancements in their quality of life.”
Meet Daramis
“My goal is to teach and empower patients to learn the tools necessary to feel confident making health care decisions.”
Meet Emily
“Hearing patients’ gratitude and seeing their motivation never gets old.”
Meet Jess
“I knew that if I wanted to be the best, I had to learn from the best.”
Meet Merideth
“Internal medicine continually pushes me to learn and gain new skills to help our patients.”.
Meet Mike
“Working a complex heart surgery is like a dance. I’m in awe every time. My patients teach me humility and that life is a gift.”
Meet Neil
“I help people get through some of the scariest moments in their life.”
Meet Rose
“I convey curiosity in a nonjudgmental way and assure patients we can all do hard things.”
Meet Sarah
“I go out of my way to make sure patients feel respected, protected and safe with me.”
Meet Abby
Abby was drawn to UW Health not only because of its academic reputation but because UW Health strives to be an inclusive and equitable workplace. As a physician assistant in family medicine, Abby says she loves the variety it provides. She gets to see patients from birth to old age and no two days are ever the same. She often cares for the entire family and gets to watch them grow and thrive.
Meet Carol
Carol Carr, who retired from UW Health in September 2021, says she attributes her career success to truly listening to her patients and being present in their care. She retired after a 35-year career of nurse midwifery, 31 of those years at UW Health. She has been an RN for 42 years.
Meet Elise
As a transplant nurse practitioner, Elise Strycharske says the team effort that goes into caring for this complex population is simultaneously challenging and rewarding. When she reflects on how she got into transplant medicine at UW Health, she said it was partly out of necessity. “We hired new doctors and surgeons and then the patient base tripled,” she says. “I enjoy being a part of the process to get a patient on the transplant list.”
Meet Emelle
Throughout Emelle’s 14 years in the medical field, she has always had a desire to take care of women. Her love for medicine started when she was a young girl living in Gary, Ind. “I was in fifth grade. I wanted to be a doctor. I would read encyclopedias from cover to cover and was fascinated with the human body and how it worked,” she says with a smile.
Meet Karie
If your child has open heart surgery at American Family Children’s Hospital, they likely will be seen at some point by Karie Canada, pediatric cardiovascular nurse practitioner. Karie works with pediatric patients born with heart abnormalities — congenital heart defects (CHD) — and those with acquired heart disease.
Meet Loyda
For Loyda, providing the best cancer care for her patients, empowering her daughters and giving back to those in need all boil down to doing what’s right as a professional. Like many nurse practitioners, Loyda had a desire to work in healthcare since childhood. But her story has a different beginning than those of her colleagues. Loyda was born and raised in a small town in Panama.
Meet Mike
Mike Horowitz has always loved emergency medicine. It’s fast paced, unpredictable, requires astute assessment skills, flexibility and the ability to function in a high-stress department. Working as an EMT/firefighter in the past, Mike says emergency medicine just comes naturally to him, maybe even instinctual. “It’s always been my home base. I’m often seeing a patient on their worst day. My day-to-day is their worst day.”
Meet Renee
Renee grew up on a farm in Wisconsin — the second oldest of five girls — and knew she wanted to be a nurse, even at a young age. For Renee, working at UW Health is a family affair. Her husband, Peter, works in the neurosurgery intensive care unit at University Hospital and her younger sister, Janelle, is a nurse in outpatient oncology and shadowed her at UW Health.