Nurse practitioners, also known as NPs, are expert clinicians with advanced training who provide primary, acute and specialty health care that is cost-effective and patient-centered.

Nurse Practitioners emphasize the health of the whole person in their approach, including helping patients make educated healthcare decisions and healthy lifestyle choices. Each year, more than 1.02 billion visits are made to NPs which shows the confidence patients have in these experts.

Since this week is National Nurse Practitioner Week, we want to first and foremost say thank you to our Nurse Practitioners! We’ve showcased some of our NPs below so that you can get to know their story about how the became a Nurse Practitioner and what they want the community to know about their work.

Janet Allbaugh, Family Nurse Practitioner

I became a Nurse Practitioner after working in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, and Pediatrics at IU Health North. The Family Health Clinic inspired me to get my Masters, and I plan to stay here until retirement.

I love working in this community; I grew up here, graduated from Delphi Community High School, raised my children here, and have never left. It is a caring community, and I love having the opportunity to care for the wonderful people who come to Family Health Clinic.

Karen Atcheson, Family Nurse Practitioner

I chose to become a Nurse Practitioner after I had been veterinarian for 25 years. I became aware that there were many Americans without insurance and without providers close to where they live. I went back to school to become an FNP specifically to work in our clinics, to work with low income, underserved people of all ages.

If I could tell the community one thing, it would be that our staff provides comprehensive primary care to the entire population, in a pleasant, personal, friendly setting. We really care about the whole community in our surrounding counties and will never turn you away.

I have really enjoyed getting to know the patients and their families, and being a provider to them over many years now. I started in 2008 as an RN and then graduated as an FNP in 2012.

We’re looking to expand our services over the next few years now that we have land and a new building with more space and room to add on in Monon. Let us know what we can do to be a better help to you, and we’ll try to meet that need.

Jennifer Boget, Family Nurse Practitioner

As a Family Nurse Practitioner, I can do pretty much anything a primary care physician can do.  I have multiple patient that would not relieve care if were not for our clinic. I  genuinely care about my patients and everyone in this office goes above and beyond to help. ​

I enjoy the family feeling I get when getting to know my patients and making a connection with them. I have people just stop in to tell me thing that happen in their lives. I had someone stop in this morning to let me know her husband “got the job.” It is this sort of connection that makes me feel good about coming to work. I know my patients feel that way too.

What I’d like to say to raise awareness for NPs during this National Nurse Practitioners week is that patient’s love NP’s! I hear all the time how much people enjoy being cared for by NPs.  I work part time in an urgent care and I hear it in that setting too. Patients will always thank me for taking time to explain things to them, they will often say that physician’s breeze in and out and do not take much time with them. I think we make a big difference in a lot of our patient’s lives.

Sandy Bushman, Family Nurse Practitioner

My career journey began while a Junior in high school when I started with a CNA course. I then worked as a CNA for 3 years in a local nursing home. Following high school, I started college at IU Kokomo in the Associate Nursing Program and after one semester of nursing clinicals, I began increasing my knowledge as a Student Nurse Extern at Methodist Hospital in Neurocritical Care.  I continued to work in Neurocritical Care for 10 years while I worked PRN doing Cardiac Care, ER, Homecare, and Rehabilitation nursing to gain experience in multiple areas of Nursing.