Listening, Loving, and Caring

Tiffany Greiman, a Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er at Quin­cy Med­ical Group, cares for patients in local nurs­ing homes. Inspired by her cowork­ers and shaped by her ear­ly expe­ri­ences with her grand­moth­er, Tiffany found her call­ing in geri­atrics, a field where she feels right at home. In this Q&A, Tiffany shares how her jour­ney to becom­ing a nurse prac­ti­tion­er was shaped by her pas­sion for lis­ten­ing to and sup­port­ing old­er adults. 

What inspired you to become a nurse practitioner?

I was inspired by cowork­ers who were cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing their own path to be an NP. I fin­ished school at a point where there were a large num­ber of us fin­ish­ing school and try­ing to find their spot in the Quin­cy Health­care world at the same time. I’m hap­py to say there are a lot of us that found our home at QMG and at oth­er facil­i­ties local­ly. It’s nice to still have that connection.

What is your spe­cial­ty area, and what drew you to it?

I have always been more com­fort­able around old­er peo­ple. That like­ly came about as a result of spend­ing a lot of time with my grand­moth­er and her sib­lings. When I start­ed as a nurse, one of my favorite things was to get to know my patient’s and let them tell me about their life. When I found my NP home in geri­atrics, it was just a nat­ur­al fit.

What advice would you give to some­one con­sid­er­ing a career as a nurse practitioner?

I would tell some­one to think things ful­ly and don’t make the deci­sion based on not being con­tent in your RN roll. Health­care con­tin­ues to evolve and so do the demands on all of us. You have to find your niche and it may be as an NP and it may not. Pay atten­tion to the oppor­tu­ni­ties placed before you and you’ll find your path. 

Sep­tem­ber is also Healthy Aging Month, what is the most reward­ing aspect of car­ing for seniors? What have you learned from car­ing for them?

One of the most reward­ing aspects of car­ing for old­er adults is being able to help them and their fam­i­lies nav­i­gate deci­sions that come about as a result of aging. We are not meant to be here for­ev­er and that is some­times dif­fi­cult for peo­ple to process. One of the biggest things I have learned from old­er peo­ple is the impor­tance of lis­ten­ing to them and mak­ing sure the peo­ple around them are lis­ten­ing to them also. Peo­ple need to be able to make their own choic­es and we need to hear them when they tell us.