Danielle Gorbe

I was raised by a single mom, so I did kind of have to grow up pretty quickly. I've been through a lot of bad things in my life, and instead of kind of letting it hold me back, I've kind of let it push me forward. I don't want to go through this again, or I don't want my kids to go through this, or I don't ever want to be in a position like this because of the things I went through. It's kind of just taking my past and seeing what my mom and myself went through growing up and as an adult, and kind of not allowing that for myself as an adult.

The best career advice I ever received was to really not let people hold me down, because when I was a brand new NP, obviously I was young, and I was not necessarily looked down upon, but people don't always take women seriously, and then adding in being so young made it harder. The advice was really just to hold my own, carry myself with confidence, because eventually, regardless, they're gonna see my worth, and if they don't, that's their issue, not mine.

I would tell young women entering healthcare to work hard and to not let people push over you. If you have a concern about a patient, or you think something isn't right, you need to voice your concern, even if people don't always necessarily think you're the nicest person. It's more important to not necessarily be the nicest person, but be the most effective person for patients. These are literally people's lives that we are impacting every day.

The biggest challenges in my field right now are continued issues with nursing shortages and physician shortages, as well as the acuity of patients - patients feel a lot sicker than they used to. But that also kind of creates a really great opportunity in the acuity portion of it to really learn more. I've learned more in the past year or two than I had in many years prior to that, just simply because people are more sick, and you're seeing things that you don't normally see. They kind of coined me in my office the medical anomaly queen, because I end up with very odd cases. But it really gives an opportunity to broaden your learning and your knowledge base.

The values most important to me are honesty, trustworthiness, and responsibility. Obviously, I carry a lot of responsibility for people in my work. In my personal life, loyalty is very important - I'm very dedicated to my family and everything. Honestly, I just kind of overall pride myself on being a good person that people can turn to, both professionally and personally.