Alumna voted Best Nurse Practitioner

By Laura Lesley

University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Nursing Alumna Deanna P. Jackson, MSN, CRNP, has been voted “Best Nurse Practitioner in DeKalb County” by Fort Payne Times-Journal readers.

Jackson is a Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner at Alabama Women’s Health in Fort Payne, Alabama, where she began practicing in October 2016.

Jackson Deanna headshotDeanna Jackson“My passion is women’s health and I love providing services for them,” she said. “I’ve helped deliver a lot of babies in DeKalb County, so it means a lot to be recognized by my patients.”

As a student in Family Nurse Practitioner track in the School’s Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) program, Jackson was part of the Graduate Nursing Education Primary Care Scholars (GNEPCS) initiative, which provided her with specialized mentoring, individualized content relative to rural health issues, preceptorships with rural health providers and other opportunities for professional and leadership development.

Prior to completing her MSN in August 2016, Jackson was recruited by Alabama Women’s Health.

“I’ve always known that rural care lacked in both quantity and quality of providers, but the GNEPCS program truly opened my eyes to the health disparities of our state,” Jackson said.

“During one of our GNEPCS conferences, we had the pleasure of hearing Dale Quincey from the Alabama Rural Health Association speak. He provided some unacceptable statistics concerning our state, and I was horrified to learn that my county—DeKalb—has the highest rate of no prenatal care in the state. With my background in women’s health, and now that I have earned my FNP, I hope to help make even more of a positive impact on women’s health and prenatal care in DeKalb County and reverse some of these statistics.”

Jackson is a member of Phi Theta Kappa Nursing Honor Society and the Nu Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.

Prior to enrolling in the School’s MSN program in the Family Nurse Practitioner track, Jackson earned her ADN and BSN, working in a dialysis center for three years before transitioning to women’s health and working for 15 years at DeKalb Regional Medical Center.

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