GRANTS, NM – The American Association of Nurse Practitioners announced the recipients for the 2024 AANP State Award for Excellence, among the 50 recipients is City of Grants native Elisa Lundin MSN-Ed, FNP-BC.
The AANP State Award for Excellence is presented annually to nurse practitioners (NPs) and those who work to increase patients’ access to the high-quality care NPs provide.
One NP and one advocate from each state, district or territory were honored at the 2024 AANP National Conference in Nashville on June 25 to June 30. Lundin said, “To me it is humbling, because I feel like a bit of an imposter sometimes doing the work I do, but it really helped to kind of reinforce that what I do is important and just gives me a little bit more motivation to keep doing it and keep pushing our practice forward… It’s just such a nice acknowledgement, I wouldn’t do my job differently with or without it. It was super humbling to hear what all the other awardees had done to receive their award, and to be a part of that group was really very humbling. It was very cool.”
Lundin has been a NP for the last 14 years and is currently the Medical Director for the APC Fellowship Program in Albuquerque. When asked why she decided to become a nurse Lundin said, “My dad was injured in an accident when I was 15 and when we went to visit him at UNM in the hospital. I always thought that being in medicine was really cool, helping to get him back to health at home, once he was able to come home. I originally wanted to be a doctor and then when I did some volunteer work, I really liked nursing, they are more hands-on. I switched from medicine to nursing, and then after being a nurse for about six years I decided I wanted to go back to school and become a provider.”
Lundin said that when she first became a nurse and began working at primary care at UNM she had a great group of providers that she worked with and felt very safe asking them questions. When she transitioned to urgent care at Presbyterian Lundin said, “That’s where they really took me in.” She said that she had a specific mentor that used to work at Cibola General Hospital and that helped them to connect and they actually did the quad together one year. She said, “He was like my major mentor and just made me feel good about what I knew and gently helped me learn what I didn’t know. He never made me feel dumb for asking a question. When I was right, he made me feel good about knowing what I knew.” With her current position Lundin works with individuals who are brand new NPs or physician assistants (PAs) and they come into primary care at Presbyterian. Lundin and her colleague work to train these new NPs and PAs for nine months for what they will be doing at Presbyterian. She said, “We come out of two years of schools knowing, not enough. It’s scary, it’s really hard and so we kind of transition them from whatever their job was before.” Lundin said that in their program they encourage their new providers to ask questions. She said, “There are no dumb questions, ask the questions. You are scarier if you don’t ask questions. So, they always feel like, ‘I don’t want to be a bother to someone. I don’t want to burden anyone and I should know this.’ I’m like, no, no one expects you to know anything. If you don’t know it, don’t pretend, someone will tell you, we will tell you.”
As a trainer Lundin said that the hardest park of being a trainer is navigating the administration, other leaders, and what everyone needs to do. She said, “I’m not their boss, if there is a problem or a conflict, I’m like their advocate, where I will give them advice and get involved if I need to, but I don’t really have any teeth in the matter. Although I am getting more respect so that is helpful. Lundin said the hardest part about being a provider is the lack of access to money, medicine, food, transportation etc. She said, “We definitely struggle with making sure people have all the things that they need to be healthy and understand that what I am telling you is to help you.”
Lundin said that what keeps her going as a nurse is seeing patients get better from something that she helped them with or that they did. She said, “So like they change their diet, they changed their activity, or we changed their medication and they come back and they’re like, ‘I feel so much better.’ … We’re like, ‘Yes! I’m making a difference!’” As a trainer Lundin said what keeps her going is seeing the new providers get more confident. She said, “They are all extremely smart so having them kind of start making those decisions and knowing that they know. Like, you don’t know everything but you definitely know this and just helping them reframe certain things.”
Some advice that Lundin would give to someone who is wanting to begin a career in nursing is to volunteer in clinics or hospitals and see the work being done. She said, “So you’re not shocked at the things you will have to do, because it’s a very human job. You do all the things for everybody, for strangers. Initially it is very uncomfortable… I would say volunteering so that you know exactly what you are getting yourself into and make sure that you are not doing it for money. It does pay well, but it’s not a job that you just clock in and clock out. It stays with you; it'll stay with you when you come home. People will die in front of you, people will be born in front of you. You’ll see families celebrate and you’ll see families destroyed or devastated. Just be aware that it’s not just a job, it’s part of your life.”
Lundin said, “I just feel like I’ve been supported by my whole family along the way, my parents, my grandmother… I think having that support going through my years of training was really helpful. My grandmother helped me with my tuition for two years and my parents supported me through all my bachelor’s degrees and always have been supportive of me. I know that they are very proud.”
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