MultiCare nurse practitioners elevate patient care

For more than 50 years, nurse practitioners (NPs) have been improving patient outcomes and access to care in communities across the country.

The profession dates back to 1965 when University of Colorado established the first nurse practitioner education program.

Today, the nurse practitioner role is one of the fastest-growing professions in health care, with more than 355,000 nurse practitioners licensed in the U.S., according to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.

At MultiCare, nurse practitioners are an important part of our health care teams across both inpatient and outpatient settings. Meet three MultiCare NPs dedicated to serving the Yakima region in the following profiles.

Shereen Stocker: Three decades in Selah

When Shereen Stocker, ARNP, was in high school, she volunteered in a hospital. From the moment she walked in the door, she knew nursing was the right fit.

“I immediately liked the vibe of the hospital, and nursing allowed me to blend my love of science with my desire to work in a helping profession,” she says.

For six years, Stocker served as a registered nurse across a variety of hospital settings, including oncology, an obstetrics unit and a rehabilitation unit where she helped patients recover from strokes and spinal cord injuries.

Stocker considers that breadth of experience invaluable to her career now as a family nurse practitioner at MultiCare Selah Family Medicine.

“When I interviewed for my job at Selah Family Medicine, I said that I would give it six months and see how it went,” she says. “That was 32 years ago. It’s an honor to serve families in this community.”

One of the aspects of the job Stocker loves the most is the opportunity to offer primary care to patients of all ages, from newborns to those in mid-life to older adults.

“I really get to know my patients and sometimes I work with multiple generations in the same family,” she says. “I appreciate the honesty, trust and rapport I get to build with families over time.”

When Stocker first started out at Selah Family Medicine, she was one of only five nurse practitioners in the Yakima area.

“Back then, some specialists wouldn’t take my referrals because I wasn’t a physician,” she says. “I had to do a lot of education about what a nurse practitioner is — thankfully, the profession has come a long way since then. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the holistic view we bring to patient care.”

When Stocker isn’t seeing patients in the clinic, she goes on medical missions abroad, providing much-needed health care to resource-limited communities around the world.

“Once I traveled with a surgery team to Peru and we treated this person who had been waiting for gallbladder surgery for six years,” she says. “To be in service to people in that way always refreshes me and brings fresh perspective to my work at home.”

Who are nurse practitioners?

Nurse practitioners are registered nurses who complete graduate education at the master’s level or higher. They develop advanced skills in a particular specialty, such as primary care, psychiatric care or acute care. Nurse practitioners undergo a minimum of six years of academic and clinical preparation.

Once board certified and licensed, nurse practitioners can evaluate patients, diagnose conditions, prescribe medications, perform procedures, devise treatment plans and much more.

Learn more about nurse practitioners by viewing this American Association of Nurse Practitioners infographic (PDF).

Rigoberto Zepeda-Gonzalez: The best of both worlds

Similar to Stocker, Rigoberto Zepeda-Gonzalez, DNP, ARNP, had a formative experience in his adolescence that shaped his career choice.

MultiCare nurse practitioner Rigoberto Zepeda-Gonzalez

At 16 years old, he was admitted to the MultiCare Yakima Memorial Emergency Department (ED).

“While I was there, I peeked around the curtain in my room and another patient with some sort of trauma came in,” Zepeda-Gonzalez says. “I remember watching the nurses, how some of them just dropped what they were doing to help this person. It was all really exciting to me.”

That experience, among others, eventually led him to become a registered nurse at the facility where he was once a patient — the Yakima Memorial ED. He worked as an RN for eight years before deciding to further his career by becoming a nurse practitioner.

“I was inspired by other nurses that I worked with at the time who had gone on to become nurse practitioners,” Zepeda-Gonzalez says. “They were working alongside doctors doing procedures, and I wanted to be able to do that, too.”

Today, he feels he has the best of both worlds.

“When patients come into the ED, I get to figure out what the problem is and the best way to treat them,” says Zepeda-Gonzalez. “But I also find myself drawing on my nursing background too, taking the time to reassure them and make sure they have all their questions answered.”

Across his various roles, he’s spent 16 years serving patients in the Yakima Memorial ED, one of the busiest emergency departments in Washington state. The fast pace and intensity of his role suit Zepeda-Gonzalez, and he credits his family and colleagues for being sources of support.

“Spending time with my family is one of the ways I practice self-care, but I always look forward to seeing my colleagues, too,” he says. “We’re there for each other and we help each other out.”

Chelsea Miller: A commitment to keeping patients in the community

Chelsea Miller, DNP, ARNP, had been practicing as a registered nurse for five years at a 25-bed critical access hospital in Omak, Washington, when she felt the call to do more.

MultiCare nurse practitioner Chelsea Miller

“When people in rural areas have to be transferred to other hospitals that are hours away to get the level of care they need, it’s a big hardship, financially and emotionally,” Miller says. “I wanted to become a nurse practitioner so I could bring that expertise back to my community hospital.”

After Miller earned her nurse practitioner degree, she completed a fellowship in critical care at the Emory Center for Critical Care in Atlanta. There, she developed expertise in managing the care of patients in the intensive care unit (ICU).

“I fell in love with critical care as a specialty,” Miller says. “I enjoy the intensity and challenge of taking care of patients who are medically complex. It’s rewarding to be there for people during their sickest moments and find ways to help them get better.”

Miller’s newfound passion led her to alter her career path — instead of returning to Omak, Miller accepted a nurse practitioner position at Yakima Memorial Hospital’s ICU in 2021.

“Like Omak, Yakima is a rural community with a very diverse population, and access to care can be an issue,” says Miller. “I felt it was a place where I could do what I loved and make a difference.”

Miller started her new role just as the first wave of the omicron variant drove surges of COVID-19 infections and hospital admissions around the world. It was also a time when many health care workers were choosing to leave the industry.

“Like many hospitals, we lost staff during COVID too, but there is a core group of people at Memorial that are devoted to this place,” Miller says. “They grew up here and they stay here to serve their community. That sense of dedication is one of the things I love about working here.”

Recently, Miller took her commitment to complex patient care even further by becoming the director of the acute care nurse practitioner program at the University of Washington.