Member Spotlight: Michelle Taylor, ACNP, MSN

As an acute care nurse practitioner at Orange Coast Memorial Hospital, Michelle Taylor, ACNP, MSN, loves teaching and working with her patients. Being a nurse for 27 years has given her the ability to speak to patients and explain more complex things in a way they can really understand.

Taylor spends her busy days splitting time between supervising stress tests, rounds in the ICU, prepping open heart patients for surgery, evaluating STEMI heart attack patients that come through the emergency room, seeing new consults, and helping out wherever she is needed. She particularly enjoys working with patients who have come in with heart attacks because they often don’t understand why they have had one. Taylor likes being able to help them understand the physiology of what coronary artery disease is and explain why they are on certain medications and how to prevent further events. She takes a personal interest in these patients, which has only increased as she has become more educated on lipids.

Taylor became interested in lipids when a rep for VAP testing came in to her previous practice and shared information about advanced lipid testing. Upon returning to the hospital setting in 2011, Taylor was immediately introduced to Dr. Robert Greenfield, a longtime member of the National Lipid Association (NLA) and the current president-elect of the Pacific Lipid Association (PLA). Taylor loves where she works because there truly is a collaborative environment with a team of physicians and nurses who work very closely together. She was especially lucky to be taken under the wing of someone so knowledgeable in the field. Dr. Greenfield immediately introduced her to the NLA and got her involved in meetings and roundtable dinners. She quickly realized that there was so much left to learn in the field of lipidology and has since become more involved with the NLA as a regional representative for the PLA.

Taylor feels it is important for all clinicians to place a focus on lipids because it is all about preventive medicine, but many people do not have a good understanding of lipidology and how complex it can be. She thinks that anyone teaching patients about treatments and prevention of heart disease needs to have this knowledge, and there needs to be a greater awareness of the importance of lipidology. She has noticed that since Dr. Greenfield has become her mentor, and she has become more educated on lipids, that physicians and other clinicians in her hospital come to her with questions and trust her opinion. She notes, “If I change a patient’s medication, other physicians don’t question me.” She feels that her involvement in the NLA also shows that she is devoted to the field and is better equipped to treat patients.

Taylor spends her time away from the hospital hiking or doing hot yoga to help clear her mind and keep her stress levels down. She has been lucky enough to befriend other nurses in her hospital who she enjoys hiking with. Taylor tries to get outdoors as much as possible and enjoys traveling to national parks to camp and hike.

Written by NLA Membership Manager Britney Caldwell.