Rebecca Fowlkes

Rebecca is originally from Knoxville, Tennessee. She got her bachelor's of nursing in 2004 from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She started working for the University of Tennessee hospital in Cardiac surgery right after she graduated. Since starting nursing she has worked and lived in seven states. She has always loved traveling, meeting new people, and learning about other cultures. She has traveled as much as she could. She has been to almost all of the 50 United States and to 12 other countries. She has loved being a nurse and helping people. After a few injuries she realized hospital nursing wasn't good for her body. She decided she needed a change, and became a nurse practitioner. She wanted to be able to still help people, and that provided her with an opportunity to help in a different way. She got her master's from Vanderbilt University in 2009 as a family nurse practitioner. While in school, she worked in a crisis unit and right after she worked doing home visits. She loved both, but decided to do something different. She used to think she didn't want to work in psychiatry, so she chose to work in Dermatology and at convenience care clinics for 4+ years after school. Over those years she realized that the people she enjoyed seeing the most and felt like she could help the most were the ones who couldn't be helped with creams or antibiotics. This led me to go back to school for psychiatry. She graduated with my post masters as a Family Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner in 2014. She has to say that working in psychiatry has been the best part of my working life! She has loved being able to help people. She feels that people are so much more than their disorders or diagnoses. She has loved collaborating with clients and their other providers to treat the whole person, not just one piece. In the last 10 years, I have been blessed to work with clients in outpatient mental health centers, online clinics, and in a crisis unit also. She has loved working with all ages. When she is not working she loves to hang out with friends, family, and her fur babies. She loves to go hiking, kayaking, travel, reading, and binging Netflix with her fur babies, family, and friends.