The Nurse Practitioner Will SeeYou Now
More than a year after the departure of the previous nurse practitioner, the Graduate Center welcomes Adraenne Bowe to its ranks. She joined the GC earlier this semester.
A New York native who earned her nurse practitioner credentials on the west coast, Bowe became the second person to fill the role since the Student Health Services center was created in 1994.
Bowe’s arrival will doubtless be welcomed with sighs of relief from many students. For the past academic year a list of off-site clinics has bridged the gap between nurses. But these clinics were no substitute for a friendly face and sympathetic ear. Nor did they do anything to quell the anxiety felt by many GC students, (according to Sharon Lerner 40% of GC students are uninsured) who perched nervously in an unfamiliar doctor’s office petrified to ask, “How much is this going to cost?”
The omnipresent fear of the uninsured or underinsured is a problem of which Bowe is well aware. “I think one of the major challenges, here and everywhere, is the health care system,” she said. “It’s my goal to make this particular system and service as good as possible.”
The issue of health insurance has been a consistent challenge in Bowe’s career, which spans almost four decades. “Patients are basically put in the position of being commodities and the provider is put into the position of a corporate profit making system,” she said. “That can be very frustrating.”
In her new office on the sixth floor of the Graduate Center, Bowe’s desk is cluttered with items that had yet to find a permanent home. She sits straight-backed and attentive, in a chair positioned at the end of the desk rather than behind it. Her fingers link together loosely on her lap and her CUNY Graduate Center ID card hangs around her neck, showing the miniscule portrait of its owner, discernible by shoulder-length brown hair and blunt bangs.
Bowe hadn’t always wanted to be a nurse. She studied English Literature at Vassar College and had aspirations of becoming a writer — dreams that she would still like to fulfill. “My interests were originally in writing and literature. It’s not over yet,” she said, smiling. Her penchant for writing, she believes, is in her genes. Her father is author Harry Bernstein, who published alongside William Carlos Williams and Gertrude Stein in the early thirties. More recently, at age 98, he became the oldest person to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship grant for his third book, “The Golden Willow.” Bowe is currently reading an advance copy. “It won’t take me long,” she said. “His books are very easy to read. You just kind of slide through it.”
By the time she decided to swap coasts Bowe had already elected nursing as her career. She attained her Masters in generic nursing at the New York Medical College and spent two years practicing on the Lower East Side. “I think I became more socially and politically aware,” she said of her decision to become a nurse. “At the time I saw that people really could not function and achieve what they wanted to achieve if they were not well. That’s what inspired me.”
Bowe is no stranger to institutes of higher education, either as a student or a health care provider. She speaks highly of her experiences at public colleges and universities. At the City College of San Francisco, she took courses in such disparate disciplines as aviation and classical piano, before finally enrolling for nurse practitioner training at the University of California. Nurse practitioners are registered nurses who have completed advanced education in nursing, and are qualified to advise patients on disease prevention as well as diagnosis of acute and chronic disorders.
In addition to her experience in urban primary care, Bowe also worked as part of a mobile health unit in rural northern California, providing care and physical exams to people who would not otherwise have had it. “That was a very interesting position, but it was state funded,” she says. “Like all state funded programs it had its limits.”
“Everybody wants to live in San Francisco. I’ve been trying to figure out why I came back!” she joked. “Nurse practitioner positions on the west coast were not plentiful,” she said, identifying the reason for her return to New York. “The medical community was not as open to nurse practitioners simply because there was a lot of competition between doctors.” When she speaks, Bowe does so deliberately, and when she laughs, it is self-conscious. Like an experienced listener she doesn’t rush to fill the silence when conversation lulls.
In the interim, between returning to New York and taking up the position at the Graduate Center, Bowe worked at the Columbia Presbyterian outpatient clinic in Washington Heights. Prior to that she attended to City College students on the Upper West Side, as well as the Fashion Institute of Technology community in Chelsea. Before that, Bowe worked for twelve years at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, seeing survivors of childhood cancer, and evaluating the late effects of cancer treatment. Bowe was attracted to the job of nurse practitioner at the Graduate Center because here she could provide primary care with added emphasis on health education. ”This is a population that is interested in learning,” she says. “It’s an age group that I find particularly stimulating to work with.”
Experienced in dealing with the needs of student populations, Bowe feels confident in her ability to provide the correct support and assistance needed at the GC. “I don’t think anything is too small or too large to deal with,” says Bowe. “There are specific things that people are concerned with. Immunizations are very big, as are screenings for certain conditions such as HIV or sexually transmitted diseases.
“I think staying well is the most important thing for students. If a student wants to come in because they want to discuss what they’re eating or the fact that they’re not sleeping well, that’s something of importance and I can see them. They don’t have to be sick.”
Sharon Lerner, Director of Student Affairs, said wellness events would be organized over the coming months to help publicize the return of health services to the Graduate Center. She also emphasized that students should make their health a priority, particularly now that the service was back in place. “Despite repeated notices posted, sent to departments, people still don’t necessarily add certain things to their schedules,” said Lerner. Quoting Fall 2006 figures, Lerner estimated that 293 students had availed of student health services during that period. There are 4250 students enrolled for postgraduate study at the Graduate Center.
When asked why it took so long to appoint a new nurse practitioner, Ms. Lerner said the process had been exasperating. “I never surmised this could take as long as it did. I had it in my mind every day.” Lerner, who was assisted in the recruitment process by a Mount Sinai Hospital, also felt that the Graduate Center was at a disadvantage since it does not have a hospital integrated with the university. “We’re not a medical facility. We’re a university,” she notes, adding: “We’re within a state bureaucracy. You can’t go out and just make a contract with anyone when you’re a state entity.”
Despite the long and arduous process, Lerner feels that the appointment of Bowe, who was identified by Mount Sinai Hospital, was the best possible decision and one that could not have been arrived at in any other way. “It was always about finding the right person for the Graduate Center.”
While both Lerner and Bowe are inclined to agree that the Student Health Services Center is no substitute for a good health insurance plan, both understand the implications in terms of cost and affordability. Lerner advocated speaking with Associate Director of Student Affairs, Elise M. Perram when evaluating health insurance options. “Sometimes you can have student policies that are hardly worth the money that you pay for them,” said Lerner.
“It seems like there are a lot of choices but if you don’t have the money, or you’re going to get insurance that has such a high deductible that you will not use it, then I can’t in good conscience encourage that,” says Bowe. “I would urge students to come here and utilize this particular service and we’ll do the best we can.”
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