My name is Karina Wilkerson, and I am the nurse practitioner/program coordinator [KW1] for the Adult Sickle Cell Program of Excellence at VUMC. I lead and manage nurse practitioner driven clinics that provide multifaceted patient care. I currently manage four clinics: adolescent transition clinic, follow-up discharge clinic, sickle cell continuity clinic, and sickle cell survivorship clinic post curative therapies such as stem cell transplant and soon; gene therapy. I promote educational opportunities to my peers locally and nationally through formal and informal didactic lectures at conferences, weekly multidisciplinary meetings to develop evidence-based checklists to standardize and guide sickle cell disease patient management, as well as weekly meetings with inpatient and outpatient nurse practitioners to provide guidance about the management of acute complications of sickle cell disease before and after curative therapies. I also spend a substantial amount of time educating patients on self-efficacy and empowerment, allowing them to make informed decisions about their healthcare. I also manage different investigator initiated and NIH funded trials and presently serve as the lead clinical trials specialist for an international, multicenter clinical trial on transplantation for sickle cell disease.
People living with sickle cell disease face numerous socioeconomic barriers to health care, in addition to racial bias, which substantially influences their health-related outcomes. To overcome these barriers, I have done the following:
- Lead didactic series with multidisciplinary colleagues to promote awareness about subconscious biases towards individuals with sickle cell disease.
- Organized a group of multidisciplinary health care colleagues to establish a medical home for individuals with sickle cell disease.
- Trained a team of social workers and case managers to identify socioeconomic barriers to health care for patients with sickle cell disease and address social determinants of health in a step wise approach.
- Implemented a standardized approach to screen, diagnose and manage mental health related morbidity in this patient population.
I am an active member of multiple professional nursing organizations that have expanded my network of collaborative peers and enhanced my personal and professional growth. I am currently co-chair of the Research and Publications Committee for the Foundation for Women and Girls with Blood Disorders. In this role, I am working with a multidisciplinary team of sickle cell disease specialists across the United States to develop and implement a hypothesis- driven studies to advance health outcomes for women with sickle cell disease. My poster presentation on “A Multimodal Approach for Pain Management Decrease Daily Opiate Consumption and Emergency Visits in Adult Patients with Sickle Cell Disease” one 1st place in the University of Alabama of Huntsville DNP-Intensive.
When I am not submerged in work, I spend a lot of time with my family, friends, and volunteering in the community. My husband and I have two wonderful children, a 10-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son. We spend a lot of time on someone’s field or court (track, soccer, & basketball). My kids and I love to dance. If music is playing, we are moving, especially my son. My days with my family are filled with a lot of laughter, which brings me a lot of joy.
