Students/Alumni
Graduates of Penn Nursing Psychiatric-Mental Health (PMH) advanced practice nursing programs serve a variety of populations across an array of settings, from private practice, clinics and community mental health centers to primary care settings, prisons, and residential care, to name a few. Penn Nursing PMH Nurse Practitioners and Clinical Nurse Specialists are in high demand, as they graduate with a deep knowledge base in both neuroscience and psychotherapeutic skills. Their goal as mental health practitioners is to optimize the ability of an individual and family to function in today’s complex society.
Here are just a few examples of the way Penn Nursing PMH advanced practice nurses are influencing this dynamic field.
- US Navy Lieutenant Commander Pamela Herbig, RN, CNS, PMH-NP
- Christine Mulligan, APRN, BC, Abington Memorial Hospital
- Matthew McHugh, NP, CNS, MPH, PhD, JD, Assistant Professor, Penn School of Nursing
Pamela Herbig came to Penn from the US Navy in order to pursue her nursing master’s degree, specifically, as a Psychiatric-Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS).
“I came to Penn through a program called Duty Under Instruction. I had been deployed twice to Guantanamo and had done psychiatric detainee care, so Penn’s psychiatric-mental health program and forensics courses really interested me,” explains Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) Pamela Herbig of the US Navy. “Penn gave me a great foundation, and I was fortunate to have influential professors who helped set my direction. One advisor in particular had the foresight to place me at the VA for my clinical practicum so I would gain direct experience with what I’d see back in the military environment. I was able to study Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and grew to love that particular area. It’s tough for civilian schools to provide adequate training for the intricacies of providing care in military environments, but my experiences at the VA were very relevant.”
LCDR Herbig is now establishing a specialized Adult Psych-Mental Health NP program at the Uniformed Services University where she is Deputy Director and Assistant Professor. “My graduate research at Penn really prepared me to be able to work as an instructor,” she says. “It was tough, but I couldn’t do what I’m doing today without that experience. I gained a solid understanding in PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), two very important sequellae for our nurse practitioners to understand.”
In addition to building both the curriculum, faculty, and student base for the PMH-NP program at USU, Herbig plans to pursue doctoral education to study the neurobiology of insomnia, a typical symptom of PTSD patients as well as depressive and TBI patients, and something she says can be difficult to treat and can lead to poor patient outcomes.
US Navy Lieutenant Commander Pamela Herbig, RN, CNS, PMH-NP, Deputy Director and Assistant Professor, Uniformed Services University’s Graduate School of Nursing Adult Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program.