Pamela Martin’s journey to becoming a nurse practitioner began when she worked as a healthcare unit secretary. Though she never intended to pursue it as a career, her experience observing nurses in a burn unit inspired her to attend nursing school.

“I saw exactly how much nursing care was pivotal in the outcomes for those patients and families, and I decided to start taking some courses,” Martin said.

Martin’s hope when entering nursing school was to become a burn unit nurse, but the burn unit where she worked as a secretary merged with a surgical intensive care unit. As a result, she started on a general medicine floor.

Later on, Martin pursued additional training to become a family nurse practitioner, eventually landing in a role in long-term care. This was her first experience with geriatric medicine.

Additional career changes led Martin to a nurse practitioner position with Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital and Richmond Emergency Department Physicians, Inc., where she helped build Virginia’s geriatric emergency department program. It was here where she connected with GEDC, for which she is now a Core Faculty Member.

In March 2021, Martin started her current position with Yale New Haven Health in a role that initially combined geriatric program development and patient care. When she began her work at Yale, Martin served alongside GEDC Core Faculty Member Dr. Ula Hwang and geriatrician Dr. James Lai to get all nine hospitals in the healthcare system to at least a level 3 GEDA accreditation

In addition to Yale’s focus on providing outstanding care for older adult patients, Martin takes pride in the organization’s commitment to nursing education. Martin developed an educational program for new nurses in her hospital that featured the geriatric content they were unable to get through more traditional training opportunities.

“The population is continuing to age, and it’s growing at a really fast rate,” Martin said. “So even if we’re not currently caring for older adults, we will be. I think the education needs to be there to promote the independence and autonomy of our older adults across the continuum,  as well as to decrease the ageism that occurs as older people are aging.”

Though Martin’s role at Yale has now transitioned exclusively to patient care, she hopes to continue pursuing quality improvement initiatives that will benefit older adults in the emergency department. Her current interest is finding better ways to implement the “what matters most” piece of the 4Ms framework in emergency department care.

She continues to find satisfaction in her work with older adult patients and their families.

“I find it very rewarding just to see them smile and to hear their stories, and to have the ability to actually sit down with them and spend the time that’s needed to  get the full picture of what’s happening with them medically and socially,” Martin said. “Sometimes it’s just a matter of giving them some resources. But I feel like that makes a difference in care and allows people to have the autonomy to make decisions that they want.”