Joanne M. O'Brien, NPC

I was born in San Francisco and raised in Marin County. I left idyllic Marin for Appalachia in southeast Ohio, where I resided for 22 years. As an RN, in rural America, I primarily worked in home care, where I experienced the hardships and beauty of rural life, in some of the poorest regions (including West Virginia). I managed a home hospice program for two years. This motivated me to return to school and I attended one of the first distance learning programs to obtain my masters in nursing and family nurse practitioner degree. I worked primarily in primary care, but also worked in pulmonology, long-term care and college health (I always had a least two jobs at a time). During my time in Ohio, I served as a volunteer EMT and firefighter on a rural fire department. There is no textbook that can replace what I learned during those sleepless nights. I relocated to Oregon in 2017 and worked as a NP provider for an inpatient hospice program. I ultimately returned to primary care in a rural, underserved county in Oregon where I worked as the sole provider in a satellite clinic. I ultimately decided to return here to Northern California where my entire family resides.