Kristi R. Fogleman
Nurse Care Manager, Adult Mental Health, Live Well
What motivated you to become a mental health nurse?
I spent most of my career in Emergency nursing. The psychiatric patients I cared for and the experiences I had at home with my daughter diagnosed with SMI early in life and eventually died from suicide made me want to understand more about this area of need and how I could be a part of the solution. I was near the end of my emergency nursing career but still had more to give especially in honor of my daughter. I felt a deep calling not only to mental health but to FCS as they had helped my daughter for many years and given me time with her I may not have had otherwise.
What do you find most rewarding about your work as a mental health nurse?
It is still early in my mental health career, but the most distinct reward I feel is that at the end of the day, or even the end of a session with a client, I feel a full heart. I feel that the person I was helping left knowing that someone cared and did everything possible to help them. There are plenty of times with sadness and tragedy with mental health nursing but the rewards of knowing you gave your all, you left that client, that person, that human being with the knowledge that someone cares, someone will help them, they are not alone.
Why did you choose FCS?
As I mentioned previously, I looked first to FCS when I decided mental health nursing was the way I wanted to go because I wanted to give back. Give back to FCS, the community, the people. If my daughter had not been serviced by them for so long, our time together would have been much shorter. Every extra hug, every smile, every glance was one I may not have gotten if it hadn’t been for the caring FCS gave to her.
How do you see the field of mental health nursing evolving in the future?
I am proud to be a part of nursing being included and involved in new and different ways than previously. In the past, most thought of nurses in mental health as the “nurse Ratchet” – the stern woman passing meds and enforcing the rules. Today, here at FCS, we are included in monitoring and helping manage medical care, educating on disease states, doing case management for many different areas and wellness education and individual rehab for clients. I see our roles growing into family classes, home visits, and already in place are HOT and PACT teams.
