A Shift & A New Path

A SHIFT & A NEW PATH

A ROAD TO SELF-FULFILLMENT LED TO CARING FOR THE COMMUNITY.

— By Melissa McCance—

It’s funny how we can be so sure of the path we want to follow in life, and then something will happen that turns us in a completely different direction. Nurse practitioner Reanna Pickerign of Hillsdale Health & Wellness experienced just such a shift, and she couldn’t be happier about it.

“I was pre-law, I thought my whole life I’d be a lawyer. Then I met a nursing assistant and she was telling me that she took blood pressures and drew blood and talked to patients, and I thought it sounded like the coolest thing ever. I said, I’m through with pre-law— I WANT TO BE A NURSING ASSISTANT!”

Reanna completed that training and began as a nursing assistant, and then, as she phrases it, “I just kept climbing.” She received her undergraduate degree from Lourdes University in Sylvania, Ohio, and continued on to graduate school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She is now a certified family nurse practitioner (FNP-C).

During the final semester at Case Western, the students were allowed to choose what they would do. Reanna and a friend moved to California where she did hospice and palliative care, a field that she loved. At the time, she thought she would remain in California, but family ties pulled her back to the Midwest. “My sister started having babies, and I just missed them—I missed my whole family. So, I was initially looking at jobs near Cleveland, but I saw this listing for a job in Hillsdale because I had opened up the search to some parts of Michigan as well.”

After making initial contact with the hospital, Reanna had a very favorable first impression.

She then Skyped with Dr. Ravi Yarid who owned Hillsdale Health & Wellness at the time and signed on for the position sight unseen.

The shift to a rural setting was an adjustment at first, but one that she’s been happy to make. “I remember asking where the mall was. I had no idea that Target was so far!” she laughs. “I’d be prepaying for my gas at the station and everyone would ask me why I was doing that, that I didn’t have to. Everyone knew everybody in the stores, and they were just the nicest people I’d ever met in my life. Dr. Yarid would close for Fair Day, which was something I’d never heard of, and he’d close early on Halloween so the families could go trick-or-treating, and I thought, ‘This is just the best place ever.’”

Reanna has now been with Hillsdale Health & Wellness for six years and is very enthusiastic about the practice. “I love that we see patients of all ages, and that we do primary care medicine as well as seeing acute walk-in cases. I can do the immediate, acute care and see results right then, but I can also partner with a family and take care of them throughout their lives.” When asked about areas of particular interest within the practice of medicine, Reanna listed mental health, pediatric and adolescent medicine, and palliative care.

She does acknowledge that there are some challenges in rural medicine. Because of the extended hours offered at the clinic, there can be times when they’re still seeing patients and issuing prescriptions, but local pharmacies are closed. The same thing applies to changes in prescription formularies which can require some planning to ensure

patients are getting the most effective medication at a tolerable cost.

Regarding future goals for the practice, Reanna says they’re looking at possibly expanding telehealth visits which are already available and a good option when there’s a lengthy line for walk-in patients and patients prefer not to wait in the parking lot that long. Also, she has discovered that not everyone realizes the clinic is open seven days a week, so she is hoping to increase awareness that care is accessible on any day.

Something Reanna has recently undertaken is to partner with the University of Michigan School of Nursing as a preceptor for nurse practitioner and midwifery students. She said that many of these students have been more research-focused before they come to her and clinical experience is fairly new to them, but they’re all doing well with in the new setting. Reanna strives to develop their independence and to give them an understanding of the joys and challenges of rural health as small-town medicine is a first for them.

Reanna’s personal life is well-grounded in Hillsdale as she lives here with her husband whom she married just this past October. They share their home with a beagle mix named Oliver and a boxer mix named Sophie.

Hillsdale Health & Wellness is located at 240 W. Carleton Road, Hillsdale, in the Kroger Plaza and the clinic is open from 10 to 6 every day. You can reach them by calling 517-437-7040. 11

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