Renard Walker | Elevate

Emerging Voices

Renard Walker,
Nurse Practitioner

What was your path to mental healthcare?

Growing up as a child, my mom always emphasized to me the importance of peace of mind. I was fortunate to have a loving family growing up that made the necessary sacrifices allowing me to have that peace of mind. However, others in this world are not as fortunate, recognizing this, my passion for mental health continues to grow. I am currently working as a Registered Nurse in New York at a state psychiatric hospital with hopes of helping my patients achieve their own form of mental health & peace of mind. I am currently enrolled at the University of Binghamton in New York where I am pursuing my master's degree in Family Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing in the role of Nurse Practitioner. With the increased demand in mental health, I am especially excited to be working on a degree and profession that will allow me to be part of the solution.

How will this scholarship help you?

This scholarship provides excellent networking opportunities and the possibility of connecting with a mentor while allowing me to improve at my future craft. I know I have a challenging road ahead both academically and professionally, but with the help of this scholarship combined with my drive and passion I will not rest until I have made a significant difference in the world of mental health.

What are your academic and/or career goals?

After school I would love to work with adolescent mental health patients because most are suffering from circumstances that were not their fault or out of their control. If I can help give them a new or fresh start in life, I feel like that would be extremely rewarding and be a dream career positively impacting their lives. During my journey, I am mentoring and working towards my MBA in healthcare administration concurrently during my psychiatric nurse practitioner program. My goal is to finish school equipped with the clinical skills required to work within the psychiatric profession as well as leadership skills to successfully collaborate amongst the various disciplines involved. The financial and accounting knowledge I am obtaining in my MBA program will allow me to understand the logistics required within the healthcare business to be create realistic plans and models to positively impact the mental health patient population. I feel like there is a gap between non-clinical leadership and clinicians; I hope to bridge that gap as I continue on in my career as a psychiatric nurse practitioner and MBA graduate.

What does “exceptional patient care” mean to you?

Exceptional patient care to me is making a patient feel their best even when they may be at their worst. It is the art and science of providing trauma informed, empathetic, and safe that provides optimal outcomes while maintaining patient dignity throughout. It is an ongoing therapeutic relationship that requires self-reflection because without self-awareness we cannot truly be present to provide excellent patient care for our patients. This is something that I try to embody with every patient encounter and when I know I cannot, I take breaks, because patients do not deserve any lesser quality of care because of our bad days.