Dual Field Nursing: How Amber Fessette’s Passions Intertwine With Her Work

This month, we spoke with Amber Fessette about mental health, passions and fitting fitness into a packed schedule. Amber Fessette is a psychiatric nurse practitioner, an aesthetic nurse practitioner, a medical spa medical director and a certified personal trainer.

Dennis Postema: As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, an aesthetic nurse practitioner, and a certified personal trainer, you don’t ever have a boring day, do you?

Amber Fessette: No, there’s always something new going on. On the psychiatric side, I work from home using telemedicine to see my patients. I am also a medical director for multiple medical spas and a master injector at one of them.

At the medical spas, I’m on my feet all day, running around injecting clients and making sure things are running smoothly. I like the combination of these jobs because they’re very different.

Dennis: What does your career’s timeline look like?

Amber: It took a while to figure out if I wanted to go into nursing. I’m so happy I did! I’m very passionate about it, and I love everything that I’m doing. Originally, I went in for psychiatric nursing, which is kind of rare for nursing. of trauma, and I have family members that struggle with mental health, so psychiatric care hits home to me. Plus, I was always interested in studying how the brain works and why people are the way they are.

I became a registered nurse first, then earned my Bachelor of Science in nursing, and then I went on to my master’s at nurse practitioner school.

By that point I was into fitness. I work out with a trainer, and I’ve always loved going to the gym. I used to run halfmarathons and marathons when I was younger. My love for fitness translated into a love for health.

I became a certified injector for skincare, such as Botox, filler, plateletrich plasma (or PRP), and things like that. It was unexpected, but I fell in love with it. It’s an art and a science from a professional level, being able to do all of those injections, and it’s a fun atmosphere.

Now that I’m a nurse practitioner, I work part time injecting patients for about 15 to 20 hours a week, and I work part time from home seeing psychiatric patients for about 20 hours a week.

Since I’ve been out of school, I dove back into the psychiatric field a little more, and my current focus is developing those skills as a provider.

Dennis: Mental health is important for overall health. As a society, we are getting better at talking about it. How fulfilling is a career in this field? How does good mental health help you throughout the week?

Amber: The discussion around mental health has gotten a lot better, but unfortunately, there is still a pretty big stigma out there.

I think stress is underrated. We’re just beginning to

Never feel bad about going old school! Amber shares some advice on writing things down pen-and-paper style and keeping track of daily wins: Writing things down and crossing off what you finish gives a dopamine hit, like, “Hey, I did it.” You feel like you accomplished something more when you write down that you did it.

When you’re really busy, some days it’s like, “OK, I did everything I wanted to do,” but there are so many other days when you have two or three things you didn’t get to that are going to carry over to the following day, and so on. You have to give yourself the wins for everything you accomplished that day.

Don’t get too caught up in what you didn’t get done. If you’re a busy person, you are bound to have things at the end of the day that you just didn’t get around to doing. Everyone is “go, go, go” these days. A lot of people feel like they’re juggling five different things, between family, kids, work and everything else, so it can be overwhelming. touch the surface on how stress affects the body mentally and physically. It’s important to have quality of life.

Ask yourself: Do you like your job? Are you going to work and doing something that you like to do? Is there a good balance in your life?

That’s one reason I love fitness: it’s my number one de-stressor. It helps me clear my mind and makes me feel happier, on top of the physical benefits. I think that’s underrated too. Unfortunately, food has become less healthy in the USA, and people are spending more time sitting down and less time being active.

While medication is necessary for some patients’ mental health, I try therapy with my clients. I ask them what their daily habits are and what’s going on in their life, to determine whether it’s relationships, work or health issues causing them extra stress.

I try to get the whole picture, which is holistic one rather than, “You have an issue, so let’s treat it with medication.” Dennis: What does a day look like in the life of Amber?

Amber: On Mondays and Tuesdays, I see psychiatric patients for 10 hours from home. I answer workrelated messages between patients, whether it’s for the medical spas or telemedicine clients. I’m on a few different message boards with coworkers, so I’m still pretty busy between patients. I love to make posts on social media, but I’m incredibly busy, so I have to remind myself to post. I use an old-school planner and write everything down. I’ve gotten better about using my phone and computer for reminders, but my planner keeps me organized. I would forget half of the stuff I need to do if I didn’t write it down. Patients and clients are at the top of my to-do list. During the latter half of the week, I split my time between seeing mental health patients in the morning from home and going to the medical spas on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. On Friday, I’m injecting and directing at the medical spas all day.

Dennis: How many times a week do you try to work out, on average? Amber: Since my work hours are more consistent, I have a pretty good workout routine. Ideally, I would work out six days a week, but I aim for at least four days a week. It really depends on how busy I am. If I can’t work out one day, I tell myself, “It’s fine, I needed a little bit more sleep last night.” I don’t beat myself up over it. The first few weeks when you start working out are a struggle if you haven’t worked out in a while. After doing it for long enough, I came to enjoy it. It’s my “me” time, especially in the mornings. I do a combination of workouts. I love hot yoga, so I try to do that once a week. I like to go to the gym and lift weights. If I’m really short on time, I put on my running shoes and go for a quick jog, then move on with my day.

Dennis: When did you figure out that mornings are ideal for your workouts? the last few years. When I was a little younger, I tended to work out in the evening, but now I’m the opposite: I love getting up early and getting it done. Sometimes if I work out during the evening, it gets me pumped and I take longer to wind down. “Sleeping in” for me nowadays is 7 a.m. Waking up early makes me feel ahead of schedule, as opposed to waking up at, say, 10 a.m. Some people are night owls, and that’s fine, but waking up late makes me feel like I’m behind in the day. Plus, I’m so busy during the day that it’s easier for me to get my workout done first thing in the morning. If you can win in the morning, then you’ve won most of the day already, so it’s a great start. Dennis: What does your diet look like, and how do you mix that into everyday life?

Amber: When I was in nurse practitioner school, it was so hectic and hard to keep track of. Now that I’m working with a consistent schedule, my diet has gotten a lot better, but overall it depends on the day. I am an intuitive eater, and I pay more attention to portion size than what I eat.

Sometimes I’ll fast in the morning if I’m not feeling hungry for breakfast. Other times I’ll have a breakfast sandwich, but not with a lot of bread. Other times I’ll have a smoothie.

For lunch, I tend to make salads with chicken or some other protein. Dinner is across the board—sometimes my boyfriend and I go out to eat, sometimes we’ll cook something at home. When I was younger, I snacked when I was bored. I’m rarely bored anymore, and I’m happier, so that habit has died down for me.

Dennis: Your work revolves around making people feel better. Was that an intentional part of your career choices?

Amber: No, I’ve never heard it framed that way before. Now that you mention it, you’re right, that is the case. I just love helping other people and making them feel good. Like I said, I come from a traumatic childhood. I struggled with trauma and depression, and I have close loved ones that still struggle to this day.

I think a lot of people lack confidence. We all have one little thing that others probably don’t notice when they look at us, but to us it’s a big insecurity. In the aesthetics field, clients come in to fix those things.

I love to give back. At the end of the day, helping others is fulfilling and makes me happy. People say you have to have a lot of patience for the mental health field, which is true, but it doesn’t feel that way to me—I naturally enjoy it.

Dennis: Are there any other passions you want to share with us today? big topic in mental health. I always worry about our youth with social media because of filters and other dangers. Social media can be used for good and for bad.

As adults, we can look at a photo and think, “OK, this is a filter and I don’t actually look like this,” right? I worry about children having the correct expectations about how they actually look without filters. There are a lot of things like that in child psychology, in particular.

Outside of work, I’m passionate about traveling. It’s expensive, but it’s my favorite hobby. Seeing new places, experiencing other cultures and eating different foods is very interesting to me.

When I’m working, I’m enthralled by it, but I try to take vacations at least quarterly, whether it’s spending time with family back home or traveling to a new place. To learn more about Amber Fessette, check her out on Instagram @Nurse_ Glamber and @Amber. Fessette, or on TikTok at AmberFessette.