#MeetUsMonday - Meet DNP Student Alex King
Meet DNP Student Alex King.
Atlanta native. Golfer. Dog dad to a rescue Bichon named Willow. Former neuro ICU nurse turned first-ever neurology fellow at UVA Health. Now a neurology nurse practitioner specializing in movement disorders, especially Parkinson’s disease, and manager of UVA Health’s neurology APP group. Married to fellow UVA Health nurse who works in Labor and Delivery. Currently a DNP student at UVA School of Nursing, Alex is channeling his love for hands-on neurology care and fascination with the brain into something even bigger: improving systems, expanding access, and building better environments for both patients and providers in neurology, all from Charlottesville, the place he and his wife love to call home.
PATH TO NURSING
“I was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and early on I had a goal to go into healthcare professionally. I came from a family of physicians—mostly uncles and aunts—who were predominantly my inspiration of pursuing the medicine route.”
“When I was in high school, I was volunteering at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta when I was about 15 or 16. I had some very early experiences shadowing doctors and nurses and so forth, and specifically fell in love with the nursing profession because of how hands-on it is. It was pretty basic at first—I was mostly assisting the nurses and stocking units. But I got enough face-to-face time with the nurses and their patients to see them in action. I just loved the intimate patient care that the nurses got to have, so I knew that was something I wanted to pursue.”
“I went to Emory University for my undergraduate degree in nursing, and during that time I found a passion for critical care, and very specifically neurocritical care.”
“The DNP program has been a very high-yield experience. The big thing with the DNP program is the quality improvement process. From start to finish, learning how to actually do that in practice has been very helpful."
Alex King, DNP student
EARLY CAREER
“As I moved out of nursing school, I took a job as a nurse resident as part of Emory’s critical care nursing residency in their neuro ICU and stayed there for just shy of two years. During that time, I fell in love with the neurology portion, more so than the critical care portion, so I decided to go back to school be a nurse practitioner through Emory’s program. I did their adult gerontology primary care route, as it was more specialized in internal medicine.”
“After graduating, I did the neurology fellowship here at UVA. It was a year-long postgraduate training program through the Department of Neurology, and I was the first fellow to go through that program. I loved UVA, loved Charlottesville, so I decided to stay—and that’s where I have been since. I started practicing in general neurology and then subspecialized into movement disorders, where I spend most of my time focusing on Parkinson’s disease and atypical Parkinsonisms.”
“One of the reasons I gravitate towards neurology is because of my interest in the outward expression of neurologic disease and the exam. The exam really is so powerful in neurology, and the ability to localize different presentations just based on that exam is really compelling to me. Most movement disorder conditions require long-term management, so it’s typically a long-term relationship. You get to know these patients, and help them along their journey, and I really enjoy being part of that process and building those relationships.”
“Neurology is also a field that’s really starting to expand. Historically, there’s been limited treatment options, and now you’re seeing this exponential growth in disease-modifying therapies and management options. It’s been very exciting to see that develop in real time.”
WHY THE DNP PROGRAM AT UVA?
“I think the two main drivers that brought me to pursue a DNP were the desire to grow as a leader, as well as to gain more of the didactic background on operations and quality improvement—to have that skill set as I move into leadership roles. That was a gap in my knowledge that I needed to fill to be a better manager, better clinician, and better leader. With that skill set, the hope is that I can build a better clinical environment for providers to practice in and for patients to receive care in.”
“I would highly recommend UVA’s DNP program. If someone’s goal is to seek more education and background in quality improvement, and if there’s a goal for leadership or management in nursing, this gives you the didactic skill set to do that.”
“I think the main thing that attracted me to UVA specifically was knowing that I’ve worked as a colleague with many of the professors of nursing, so I’ve seen their practice and the rigor that they bring. And also being attached to UVA Medical Center and the opportunities that it provides from a learning perspective is huge.”
WHAT THE DNP PROGRAM IS LIKE
“The DNP program has been a very high-yield experience. The big thing with the DNP program is the quality improvement process. From start to finish, learning how to actually do that in practice has been very helpful. The early statistics courses really help lay the groundwork to interpret more in-depth quality data that’s presented regularly through the institution.”
“The DNP program requires several graduate electives, and I was able to take mine through the School of Continuing Education in a healthcare leadership and management certificate program, which allowed me to tailor the experience more. I took an elective in healthcare management and leadership, which was a phenomenal experience and really laid the foundation for basic leadership and management skills in a healthcare setting. So I’ve gotten kind of two different sides—the classic DNP training in quality improvement and then more tailored business and management classes through electives.”
“I’ve also been able to apply what I’ve learned pretty much immediately. We had a problem with patient access to neurology—specifically for patients with Parkinson’s disease—where wait times were months out, which is quite a long time if you need answers. So we created a Parkinson’s Disease Access Clinic, which I co-developed with my mentor and chair, Dr. Xuemei Huang. Through that project, I was able to apply the fundamentals of statistics and quality improvement, ultimately improving access for patients with Parkinson’s disease.””
“As we’ve done new iterations of that project, the ability to do this systematically has improved greatly, and each version has become more robust and more efficient as my skillset expands. This is the focus of my DNP Scholarly practice project.”
UVA SCHOOL OF NURSING IN A WORD
“Rigorous. I’ve been very impressed by UVA School of Nursing and the DNP program’s thoroughness and focus on high-yield topics. The faculty want nothing but the best from us, which I like because it pushes you to really try and produce the best quality work. I think it also attracts other like-minded people, so working with classmates who match that same level of rigor has been very enjoyable.”
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