Polly Huynh is an MSN student specializing in psychiatric-mental health nursing who wants to bring psychiatric care to primary care clinics and have it become the norm to see a psychiatric specialist. Please consider supporting Polly and students like her, as part of YSN’s annual fund, ending on June 30.
The daughter of Chinese-Vietnamese refugees, Polly grew up in southern Massachusetts with a love for learning and family. She attended Tufts University for her undergrad, majoring in biopsychology and Chinese, with a semester abroad in China. In college, she was one of the founding members of the Tufts chapter of Primary Care Progress, president of the Vietnamese Students Club, a Health Careers Fellows, and a flautist in the wind ensemble, worked in a pre-clinical psychopharmacology lab working with mice, and volunteered at the Boston Children’s Hospital.
A few words from Polly…
I was always fascinated with the health field. I saw how interesting the challenge of the medical side was and how rewarding patient interaction could be. It wasn’t until I began talking to the nurses I worked with that I found out how happy and excited they became when talking about what they do. All their faces lit up when talking about their career. This, along with the holistic approach to treatment and the scope of patient interactions, really made me want to join the field.
My specialty is psych mental health, and I chose this specialty after working in a psychiatric hospital. I was able to see the changes that psych NPs made in the first episode psychosis clinic I worked with, and it was life changing for these patients. It was truly inspiring, and I wanted to become part of this career that treated the person as a whole.
My goal is to bring psychiatric care to primary care clinics and have it become the norm to see a psychiatric specialist. Seeking psychiatric care is still highly stigmatized, and I want to close the gap between the idea of having a visit with your PCP and psychiatric treater. I have seen the life changing effects of having a psychiatric treater and this can help a lot of individuals in the community. I am really looking forward to the specialty years of the program since we don’t get to see a lot of psych in the first year. I think I’ll really enjoy the experience!
Thank you for supporting me and my journey to becoming a nurse practitioner!