In the small town of Louisville at a table in the local restaurant, Cameron Whitehead knew nearly everyone who walked through the doors at lunchtime. She’s the town’s nurse practitioner and treats a number of its residents.
Cameron began working as a nurse in Jackson 20 years ago, and over the years realized she was ready to be home in Louisville, treating her friends and neighbors.
“I took care of my grandparents and helped them, and that’s what started nursing for me,” she said. “I’m the mother hen.”
Cameron always knew she wanted to go to nurse practitioner school.
“Oh, that was always in the plan for me,” she said. “I always knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
In her early years, Cameron worked in fields varying from labor and delivery to adolescent psych to disease management to travel nursing to working at UMC.
“I worked side by side with residents,” she said, “and it was an eye-opening experience. Residents, sometimes, don’t have a real world view that nurses bring. Having been in nursing for so many years, you have the holistic picture. You have to keep in mind that while you may write a prescription that costs $200, if your patient is struggling to pay their bills each month, they may go without,” she said. “The doctor I worked for in Madison was very compassionate. He was a good teacher and was understanding. He used to bag groceries while he was attending medical school, and you could tell the difference.”
Cameron brought a medical worldview back to her hometown of Louisville when she decided to open her own clinic. Early on, things were running well with her collaborator until he decided he wanted to increase his fee.
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In the State of Mississippi, nurse practitioners are required to have a collaborating physician sign off on their cases, mostly in the rear after the patients have been seen and treated.
“We had a good relationship,” she said. “I had a previous relationship with him calling in cases to the ER. My whole career, I have bounced ideas off
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