Nurse Residency Program Profile – Army Veteran Brandy Gomez

Staff in all areas of health care train at VA locations across the country, and VAPIHCS has training programs for many different medical specialties. The newest is the Nurse Practitioner Residency Program, with the first cohort going through their training now. One trainee in the program -Army Veteran Brandy Gomez- shared her story.

“I turned 18 right after 9/11 happened and it had a profound effect on me,” Gomez said. “I wanted to help, and I started to do everything I could to assist people because I felt deep in my heart that I needed to be of service.” 

Gomez joined the Army as a medic. She was stationed at Schofield Barracks before being deployed to Iraq. When she left the Amy, she jumped into helping in other ways. She worked as a traveling Emergency Room (ER) nurse during the COVID-19 pandemic to go where she was most needed. After completing her Doctoral Degree as a Nurse Partitioner, she could have jumped directly into working, but she wanted to participate in a residency program so that she could learn best practices in the real world and apply them to do the best job possible. 

“I’m very glad that I was able to get into this program,” Gomez said. “The preceptors are already out there working, and then they have this extra task of having a trainee shadow them, but they’re so supportive. Our directors handle the didactic -that’s the classroom portion- and they are so helpful. It’s been a good experience.” 

The Nurse Practitioner Residency Program is approximately 80% hands-on practical work with Veterans. The other 20% is classroom learning. Gomez is a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, so her practical learning has been mostly in mental health care. However, she notes that VA has an interdisciplinary approach that helps deliver better care to Veterans. In fact, her Evidence Based Practice (EBP) project focused on the referral of Veterans to primary care after they have been stabilized on medications so that the primary care doctor can provide a better continuity of care and specialized mental health clinics are able to see more Veterans. 

“I’m a Veteran myself so I care very much about Veterans getting the health care that they need,” said Gomez. “My daughter is in the Air Force, and my son, who recently returned from an overseas deployment, is in the Army, so part of what I want to do is ensure that mental health care for Veterans is exceptional and keeps improving for the next generation of Veterans.” 

As a woman Veteran who also happened to raise a woman Veteran, Gomez hopes to help improve care for women, who are the fastest growing demographic in the Veteran population. Programs already in place allow women’s Veterans access to gender-specific care, and even opportunities to socialize such as the bimonthly “Coffee and Conversations” event. However, Gomez sees the need for more women-orientated care and spaces going forward. Residency programs are an opportunity to train the next generation, but it’s also an opportunity for residents to lend their experience and perspective to improve VAPIHCS.