Meet Amber Young, CRNP, Wound Care Specialist at WHS Wound and Skin Healing Center

By Andrew Wilson

Amber Young, CRNP, has a thirst for knowledge, which has led her on a seemingly convoluted career journey, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I have very much taken a non-traditional pathway to becoming a wound care specialist at Washington Health System (WHS),” said Young. “I’ve had wonderful experiences all along the way, and whether it was good or bad, I’ve learned something from it.”

Born in Winnemucca, Nevada, and raised on the West Coast, Young married a farmer from western Pennsylvania and has lived here for the past 22 years, where she has raised their two daughters and considers this area her home. Over the course of those 22 years, she has been a teacher and a tour guide at Fallingwater, among other things.

“Because of my varied career path, I feel that I can find common ground with everyone,” she says. “I’m very relatable and enjoy talking with my patients.”

Young is a nurse practitioner (NP), which means that she earned her master’s degree and has more than 500 hours of advanced training. While NPs in Pennsylvania do not have full practice authority rights (as they do in some states) and must work collaboratively with a physician, they do have the ability to diagnose and manage acute, chronic, and complex health problems.

Because of all the work required to become an NP, it would be neither fair nor accurate to describe her journey to NP as an accident, but she uses the word “stumbled” to describe her entry into nursing. It started one relaxed Sunday morning when she and her husband were reading the newspaper.

“He saw a job posting for a nurse educator that required a Master of Education and an LPN license. He asked me if I wanted to apply for the position since I was a teacher. I said, ‘I do not have an LPN license,’ and he replied, ‘Well, what’s stopping you?’”

That was all the encouragement that she needed because the very next day, she called a local trade school that offered LPN training and applied for the next class. Approximately, 2 months into the LPN program, one of her instructors, Debra Brow, asked why – with her education – she hadn’t enrolled in an RN program instead of an LPN program.

“I thought I had to become an LPN before I could become an RN,” said Young. Informed that she did not have to become an LPN first, she dropped out of the LPN program and enrolled in Wheeling Jesuit University’s RN to BSN program. She completed all of her RN training at Wheeling Hospital and finished her degree in 18 months.

“I have to admit that obtaining my BSN in 18 months was the hardest degree I have obtained so far,” she said. Of course, the path had a few more twists.

Sensing Young’s aptitude for nursing, Dr. Gail Nickerson, one of her clinical nursing instructors, encouraged her to become a nurse practitioner, so Young applied for the NP program at Wheeling Jesuit.

“Looking back at my path of becoming a NP, I have had such great and wonderful people influencing and guiding me along my way,” she said.

As an NP, Young can order, perform, supervise, and interpret diagnostic and laboratory tests, while initiating and managing treatments that includes prescribing medication and non-pharmacologic therapies. NPs also have the responsibility of coordinating care, counseling and educating individuals, families, groups, and communities while promoting positive health practices.

She initially was drawn to wound care while still in her LPN training at a skilled nursing facility. She observed an LPN wound care nurse taking care of a patient that a life-threatening stage IV pressure ulcer on his back.

“The patient was placed at the facility as a last resort for treatment,” Young recalled.

“This LPN was efficient, caring and dedicated when it came to her patients and providing wound care. I firmly believed she saved that patient’s life through her skill, positive attitude, and knowledge of wound care. As a result, I carried that experience throughout my BSN and MSN program and training.”

And when offered the opportunity to precept with Dr. Dennis Brown at the WHS Wound and Skin Healing Center last summer, she knew it would be a fantastic and unique opportunity that she has enthusiastically embraced.

“I would like for the Wound and Skin Care Center at WHS to provide a place of hope, reassurance and healing for my patients, their families and loved ones,” Young said. “I think back to that LPN who did not give up on her patient that was left in the skilled nursing facility with no hope of recovery. Through her dedication, skill, and compassion, she not only increased his quality of life but was able to give him his life back. After a year and half at the facility he was able to go home and live his life.”