AppleTree Bay Primary Care College of Nursing and Health Sciences

     It was very exciting and rewarding for me to visit the new NP faculty owned and managed health center which is named Apple Tree Bay Primary Care. 

     Sen. Bernie Sanders' Washington D.C. based staff members Sophie Kasinow and Billy Gindell made a visit to the new NP faculty primary care clinic on North Avenue, Burlington on Wednesday. Kasinow is the Staff Director of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Subcommittee on Primary Health & Aging, and Gindell is the Staff Assistant of the HELP Committee Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging. The UVM-affiliated health center opened its doors last week and already is quite busy with 3,000 patients registered with the practice. Seven faculty nurse practitioners see patients and precept nurse practitioner students. The future includes plans to expand clinical opportunities to graduate and undergraduate nursing students with the possibility of including medical students. This practice will help alleviate a shortage of primary care providers in the area and prepare primary care providers of the future. The center will additionally address the crisis of preceptor shortages while providing greater standardized clinical supervision for UVM NP students.

     Sen. Sanders has been deeply involved in working on creative ways to address the crisis in primary care and has publicly applauded the care that NPs provide. He has promoted federally qualified health centers and community health centers; both important employers of NPs. His recently passed VA bill called for allowing NPs to practice to their full scope throughout the entire VA system, and the new VA nursing handbook supports NPs practicing to their full education capacity. We were thrilled that Sen. Sanders seeks to learn more about this innovative Vermont approach to NP education. The clinic is largely the product of the dedication and indefatigable energy and vision of Dr. Rosemary Dale, chair of the UVM Department of Nursing in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences with the full support of the administration and college.