About Me

Welcome and hello.  I am a board-certified Adult Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP-BC). My vision for this solo practice is to provide a community “home base” for patients looking for a trustworthy long-term psychiatric provider to manage medications and supportive counseling. If your treatment needs are outside the scope of my clinical expertise in this private practice setting, I will let you know and provide referrals.

Roots. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California by a single mother with my two siblings, in a predominately blue-collar and diverse immigrant Catholic community.   I am a second-generation Korean-American, and the first in my immediate family to be born in the United States. My cultural roots are not unique in America’s “melting pot” but I do find myself incredibly grateful for growing up with an extended family in a village of diverse immigrant communities. As working class immigrants, we grew up together without any understanding or access to social services, health insurance or financial stability but practiced a strong sense of mutual respect and community support.

Before my second career in nursing and mental health, I had felt lost like many of us after college and focused on finding jobs to help pay down student loans, in many different types of industries. I’ve worked at non-profit and corporate places, including jobs in sales, academic administration, and start-ups/tech companies. I am deeply grateful for having had such different professional experiences to better appreciate this unique opportunity to live and work in such a socially-minded community as well as to explore the breathtaking outdoor beauty of the PNW.    

Service-oriented.   Volunteering in the community has also been an important and regular part of my life since I was very young and throughout my life. As an adult, I have offered my time and energy in a variety of ways - assisting local community radio stations, tutoring/mentoring, and building edible gardens for senior group homes. In the Seattle area, I have had the honor to volunteer tutoring with school-age children at the Seattle Public Library and with the the underserved and uninsured at the annual Seattle Free Clinic at Key Arena. Until its closure during COVID (2020), I also volunteered for an inclusive LGBTQ+ foster care organization at their King County emergency sanctuary, keeping siblings together and supported while they wait for a longer-term foster home.

Balance.  What allows me to provide quality care for my patients in a part-time private practice is my own personal commitment to a sustainable and intentional work-life balance.  I am a quirky, curious soul with many varied interests and a lifelong learner.  When not in the office, you may find me working on home repair projects, knitting, taking classes, gardening, practicing yoga, and always reading comics.

Education and training

As an undergraduate, I studied Anthropology and Archaeology at UC Berkeley, and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts (BA) with high honors.  Before changing career paths in my late 20s, I spent a few years in night school taking the prerequisites while working a full-time software/IT job.  I studied and became certified as an EMT in Santa Barbara, California before entering an accelerated nursing program.

I attended and graduated from the Master's Entry Program in Nursing (MEPN) at UC San Francisco, nationally ranked in the Top 5 for Best Nursing schools and Top 3 Best Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner programs.  I worked as an acute care registered nurse (RN) at the bedside for five years on a neuroscience unit at UCSF, while completing my graduate NP coursework and after graduation.  I have helped care for hundreds of acute neurology, stroke, and neurosurgery patients.   

My focused NP clinical residency was working with a community office-based Suboxone program and providing integrated primary and psychiatric care for the severely mentally ill at both a senior and spanish bilingual acute crisis residential programs in San Francisco. In 2009, I completed my graduate training and was awarded a Master's of Science degree in Nursing (MS) with dual certification as an Adult Nurse Practitioner (ANP) in primary care and Adult Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse practitioner (PMHNP), as well as a Psychiatric Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist (PMHCNS).

clinical WORK Experience

I began my Psych NP career training and working with San Francisco’s community mental health system with a walk-in psychiatric crisis clinic for the homeless and uninsured.

In 2011, I spent a few years in New York, and had the opportunity to work alongside the dedicated psychiatric staff at a community mental health clinic in Poughkeepsie, NY and with an small rural group practice and primary care clinic near the Catskill Mountains in the mid-Hudson Valley.  

In 2014, I returned to the West Coast and joined the psychiatric team at The Everett Clinic, for their expanding behavioral health department to provide integrative mental health.  I worked collaboratively with psychotherapists, primary care providers and other medical specialists to help better manage psychiatric treatment of medically complex patients.

Practice style 

Stigma about mental illness continues to be a painful issue in many communities today.  If you feel scared or shamed for seeking more formal treatment, you're not alone.  It’s not easy to be struggling through life’s challenges and finding the tremendous courage to seek help, to persevere and to feel confident navigating our complex and confusing healthcare system.   You are more than a diagnosis, you are more than the meds you take.  My hope is to work in creative partnership with you with short and long-term treatment goals and be a clinical guide and educator.  

Treatment can be a positive turning point for you and can offer the potential to nurture and build lifelong tools to help you thrive. We can review and explore diagnostic frameworks, comparing current standards of care to novel treatments.  We can discuss available treatment guidelines and scientific research that inform us of the likely effectiveness of medication support to help alleviate your symptoms, and/or underlying condition.  

TEAM: I value transparency and collaboration with other treatment providers (therapists, nutritionists, PCPs, past psychiatrists), to really provide you the best care for your whole health.  If you do not consent to or want me to contact your previous prescriber, therapist, or medical doctor - I may not be able to treat you without medical records or collaboration.

MEDS: Please note that pharmacotherapy may or may not be clinically appropriate or recommended for your issues and condition(s).  I do not guarantee that I will continue or refill any medications that is clinically unsafe or harmful for your condition, especially on a first visit and/or if there has been acute changes.  If you have more than one prescriber at the same time, or have recently had several different doctors, for the same types of issues - let’s talk about it to better understand why. NOTE: I do not refill or manage non-psychiatric medications, including opioids or other types of pain management. 

CHEMICAL DEPENDENCY:  Due to clinical safety concerns and my scope of practice, I am unable to provide care for those who are primarily requiring specialty services from a chemical dependency provider or need the variety of services of an established outpatient chemical dependency treatment program.  I do have varied clinical experience working with dual diagnosis patients, but I am unable to provide office-based services as an addiction specialist/prescriber (e.g. Buprenorphine, Methadone, alcohol detox).  

SAFETY:  Your safety is my priority.  Patients who are in treatment with my practice are receiving care voluntarily, agree to be adherent to treatment plans, and are stable enough to receive care in an office setting.  If you are in need of acute treatment services or other treatments that are outside the scope of my solo practice, license, and clinical expertise - I will recommend that you get the necessary care to better help you.  

If your symptoms are severe or life-threatening, please get help now. This may not be clinically a therapeutic fit for you to be managed in a solo private practice office setting.  If your condition becomes unstable, medically complex, or could benefit from a specialist setting, I will be honest and recommend transferring care so you could get the best care possible.