Rockstar of the Week: Lindsey Fortenberry
This week’s Rockstar is absolutely deserving of the title. Meet Lindsey Fortenberry, the powerhouse provider at HealthCARE Express Shreveport-Blanchard in Louisiana. Lindsey is a nurse practitioner and has been with us for three years, and according to her, she’s loved every minute of it. “I love a lot about my job,” she said, “It’s kind of like a rainbow - it isn’t a rainbow without all the colors.”
Lindsey loves her team. “We are a small close-knit group that loves hard; whether it means big hugs or hard conversations. We know that we have each other’s backs.” She also enjoys that every day she steps through the doors of her clinic will be a new challenge. In urgent care, there’s rarely the same patient problem back to back, over and over. It’s an ever-changing environment in regards to patient flow, the complexity of care and decision making, and learning something new every day. She also loves helping others and how practicing in a rural area allows for patients that need routine care for their chronic illnesses to have a place to come when they need healthcare. “I don’t see this as a ‘we are urgent care, sorry we don’t treat that,’” Lindsey explained, “but as God placing me in a location where I can use my knowledge to help an area with poor access to care.” Finally, Lindsey is grateful for the bonds and relationships she has been able to make during her time working at HealthCARE Express and its other team members and providers. They have developed relationships, even across state lines, that go beyond the commonality of being providers.
Lindsey received her Associate’s degree in nursing from Southern Arkansas University and then graduated with her Bachelor’s in Nursing from Northwestern State University (NSU). She was accepted to graduate school at NSU the next semester where she earned her first Master’s degree as a women’s health nurse practitioner and earned her certification as a certified surgical first assistant. In 2015, she was once again accepted into NSU’s graduate nursing program where she earned her post-Master’s certificate as a family nurse practitioner.
During her years in undergraduate and graduate school, she completed clinical rotations with many amazing nurse practitioners and physicians in their private practices and earned clinical hours while serving her local community at charity clinics such as the Martin Luther King Clinic and The David Raines Clinic in the Shreveport-Bossier area. And to top it all of, she has recently been accepted to NSU’s dual Doctorate of Nursing/post-Master’s Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program for the Spring of 2021!
Lindsey is a dual board-certified nurse practitioner with a specialization in women’s health and family practice. She also holds a certification in addiction medicine and treatment of opioid use disorders and a certification as a surgical first assistant.
“I knew from the time I was three I wanted to be a nurse,” said Lindsey. Her mother is a labor and delivery nurse and she had an absolute passion for her job and her patients. “I wanted a career like my momma - it was obvious by the talk of her career, meeting her patients in the mall, restaurants, etc... that she greatly impacted their lives with her nursing skills, experience, and compassionate heart.” Lindsey wanted to have the same impact on people. She could see herself taking care of others just as her mother did. She wanted a job like her mom’s, one where you feel like you’re never really working all day and it’s a privilege and a pleasure to care for others when they’re in need. The ever-changing and evolving field of medicine, while intimidating to many others, is just a bonus to Lindsey. ”I enjoy medicine and the medical field because there’s always something to learn,” she explained.
Aside from her “amazing blended family,” Lindsey is most proud of two things in her life: the achievement of her “fit and forty” goal and the purchase of her dream home. Outside of work, Lindsey enjoys spending time with her family. She loves to run in the late evenings and doing on-demand Yoga and spin classes. She enjoys going to concerts - a bonus for concerts out of town for a girls’ trip. She and her husband enjoy long weekends in New Orleans, and they are ready for the pandemic to move along so they can resume their trips down south for Cajun cuisine, LSU and Saints football, and morning mimosas!
