Let me be honest with you. Starting a private practice was not part of the original plan. Like a lot of clinicians, I imagined my career looking a certain way: find a solid position, show up, do good work, go home. But 2021 had other ideas. The pandemic cracked mental health care wide open. People were struggling, appointments were impossible to get, and the system was not keeping up. So I did what made sense to me at the time. I stopped waiting for someone else to fix it and built something myself.
It Started With a Need, Not a Business Plan
I want to be clear: I did not launch this practice because I had everything figured out. I launched it because the need was undeniable. Patients; students, working professionals, people just trying to hold it together, were falling through the cracks. They needed appointments that were actually available, a provider who had time to actually listen, and care that felt like care.
That is what I set out to build.
The early days were of trial and error. Solo practice means you are the clinician, the admin, the decision-maker, and sometimes the one troubleshooting the EHR at 10pm, but there is something that happens when you build something from the ground up. You get to do it right. You get to set the tone, protect the time, and show up for patients the way you always believed was possible.
Who I Was Built to Serve
My practice has always centered adults (18 to 65) and two groups in particular: students and working professionals.
These are people who are often high functioning on the outside and quietly drowning on the inside. They are meeting deadlines, showing up to class, answering emails, and managing everyone else’s needs while their own mental health is on the backburner. They do not always fit neatly into a crisis model. They need someone who gets the nuance, the burnout that looks like laziness, the anxiety that reads as perfectionism, the depression hiding behind a packed schedule.
What Private Practice Actually Gave Me
There is a version of this post where I tell you private practice is all freedom and fulfillment, and leave it there. That would not be the whole truth.
What private practice gave me is agency. The ability to run appointments the way I believe they should be run. To not rush a patient through a 15-minute med check and call it psychiatry. To build something that reflects my values not a corporation’s bottom line.
It also pushed me to grow in ways I did not expect. Running a practice means thinking like a business owner, which is not taught in any clinical program. It means learning as you go, making mistakes, and figuring it out anyway. It has made me a better clinician and, honestly, a more well-rounded person.
Where It Is Going
We are still growing. The goal has always been to expand and to bring on other clinicians who share the same commitment to quality care, and eventually to move into a physical space that reflects what this practice is becoming.
Beyond patient care, I have started thinking seriously about the next generation of psychiatric nurse practitioners. New grad PMHNPs are stepping into incredibly complex roles with minimal real-world support. I know what that feels like, and I want to be a resource that I wish I had. That is something you will hear more about soon.
If you are reading this as a patient trying to decide if this practice is the right fit hope this gives you a real sense of who I am and why I do this work. It has never been about volume or metrics. It is about showing up for people when they need it most.
And if you are a fellow clinician or a new grad PMHNP who stumbled onto this. Hi, welcome, you are in the right place too!
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