Community Leaders
Whitney Trotter,
Nurse Practitioner
What was your path to mental healthcare?
I'm dually licensed as a Registered Dietitian and Nurse working in the field of eating disorders and human trafficking while attending UTHSC. I'm currently enrolled in my third year in the Doctor of Nursing Practice, psychiatric mental health program.
Ten years ago, I worked as a Registered Dietitian in the Adult Special Care Clinic working with patients who were HIV+. Shortly after I became an RD, I started working at the Shelby County Rape Crisis Center and met several nurse practitioners who became involved in advocacy work for sexual assault victims. My work with the sexual assault nurse examiners equipped me to co-found an antitrafficking nonprofit with four other friends. After nursing school, I began working as a new graduate nurse in the emergency room at LeBonheur Children's hospital. As an ER nurse, I started working to change the department policy on how we triage sexual assault patients, to prevent the loss of forensic evidence. From the sexual assault center to the emergency department, I quickly realized the need for trauma-informed mental healthcare. Many hospitals and resources in communities of color lack providers of color who are trauma-informed. The desire to serve underrepresented communities who are impacted by weight stigma, eating disorders and trafficking really launched me into my path for mental health. There are so many connections between mental health and medical care and I want to be able to bridge the gap.
How will this scholarship help you?
This scholarship will allow me to attend my first-ever Psych Congress Elevate conference and gain powerful insight into how to address the gaps in mental health care in communities of color. Due to being in my last clinical year, I am unable to work full or part-time. I value education and relational building and would not be the clinician I am today without the opportunity to learn more. I cannot express how important this opportunity is to me to further my academic learning and career goals.
What are your academic and/or career goals?
I am in the third year of my doctoral nursing program to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I hope to graduate in December 2023. I was fortunate to get to observe TMS in a rotation and saw first-hand what a difference TMS made in the lives of patients. My academic goals are to continue to gain knowledge on the use and importance of psychotropic medications and gain exposure to psychedelics and non-pharmacological interventions like ECT and TMS. My career goals are to gain experience after graduation working under a psychiatrist in a clinical setting. My area of interest is eating disorders, human trafficking, child and adolescent, and maternal mental health. I hope to one day gain a federal appointment and continue mental health advocacy on the federal level.
What does “exceptional patient care” mean to you?
Exceptional patient care means providing evidence-based care with respect to being trauma informed and culturally inclusive. I think one of the reasons the maternal death rate for Black women in this country continues to rise is because providers are not providing exceptional medical or mental health care. I also recognize there is still a very real stigma about mental health overall and particularly Black maternal mental health. I really hope to bridge the gap and provide not only exceptional patient care, but care that is inclusive, accessible, and transformative.