A Personal Connection: Lisa Knuffman

Inspired by her per­son­al con­nec­tion with can­cer, Lisa Knuff­man, ANP-BC, AOC­NP, ded­i­cat­ed her career to pro­vid­ing com­pas­sion­ate care to oncol­o­gy patients. Lisa joined QMG 15 years ago and has become a trust­ed source of sup­port for patients and their fam­i­lies. In this Q&A, she shares her jour­ney, the rewards of her role, and her advice for aspir­ing nurse practitioners.

What inspired you to become a nurse practitioner?

I had been an RN at Bless­ing Hos­pi­tal for about 9 years when I decid­ed to go back to school to become an NP. I had been work­ing as a care man­ag­er and I had got­ten to the point where I felt like I had accom­plished all I could in that role. In my heart, I want­ed to be more active­ly involved with help­ing patients man­age their health con­di­tions. I want­ed to be in a role where I could make a dif­fer­ence by assess­ing, diag­nos­ing, treat­ing, and edu­cat­ing patients. I had a dis­cus­sion with my super­vi­sor at the time and when I men­tioned my thoughts of going back to school to be an NP, she real­ly encour­aged me to take that ​“leap” and go for it. She told me that she could envi­sion me in that role and thought that I would make a good NP. After she said that, I did­n’t give it a sec­ond thought, I start­ed NP school the very next semester!

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

My spe­cial­ty area is hematology/​oncology. I was drawn to oncol­o­gy after one of my best friends, who is like a big sis­ter to me, was diag­nosed with acute leukemia when she was in her ear­ly thir­ties. She was very sick and had to spend sev­er­al months in St. Louis receiv­ing chemother­a­py and ulti­mate­ly a bone mar­row trans­plant. I was a young RN at the time and when I vis­it­ed her in St. Louis, I had so much admi­ra­tion for her doc­tors and nurs­es. I real­ly want­ed to be a part of a team like that and to work with can­cer patients and their fam­i­lies and help them nav­i­gate their can­cer jour­ney. And, yes, my friend is a 25+ year survivor!!

What do you find most reward­ing about your role as a nurse practitioner?

What I find most reward­ing about my role as a nurse prac­ti­tion­er is when my patients and their fam­i­ly mem­bers thank me for sim­ply tak­ing the time to lis­ten to them, explain things in words that they can under­stand, and when my inter­ven­tions help them to feel bet­ter or make their jour­ney more bearable.

What have you learned from your patients?

I have learned from my patients that good health should nev­er be tak­en for grant­ed. Things can change in a heart­beat and can­cer does not dis­crim­i­nate; it affects peo­ple from all walks of life. My patients have taught me that peo­ple are often much braver and much stronger than they think they are…keeping a pos­i­tive atti­tude in the face of adver­si­ty is just as impor­tant as the med­ical inter­ven­tions that we pro­vide to them.

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

If some­one is con­sid­er­ing a career as a nurse prac­ti­tion­er, I would encour­age them to go for it. If you enjoy work­ing in health­care and you have a desire to form mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions with your patients, then I think you will find it to be a very reward­ing, ful­fill­ing career!