PORT ST. LUCIE PEOPLE
The NURSE PRACTITIONER
Many young people have trouble deciding what
subject to study in school or which trade they
would like to enter upon graduation from high
school. Lindsey Porth Healy had no such problem,
realizing what she wanted to study even before entering high
school. As a person with a lot of empathy for those who are
suffering, she was focused on a nursing career at a young age.
Educated in private Christian schools in St. Lucie County
for the first eight years, she switched to St. Lucie West Centennial
High School in the ninth grade, opting to participate
in the school’s health careers academy. After graduation, she
entered and completed the registered nurse program at Indian
River State College, then Indian River Community College. At
this point, Porth Healy thought to herself, “Why stop?”
From that beginning until she launched herself into her own
rheumatology practice as a nurse practitioner using office
space in Dr. Mark Pamer’s office in St. Lucie West, Porth Healy
avoided the circuitous routes many college graduates take,
pushing forward toward her career goal of nurse practitioner.
“I had an indication before I went to Centennial that I
would study nursing,” she says. “I was always empathetic
to people, and part of it is because of my mom working as a
receptionist in doctors’ offices as I was growing up. I looked
up to her and the knowledge she had from her work.
“I was very interested during ninth-grade biology, especially
when we were studying the human body. Also, I babysat
from the age of 13 for a nurse practitioner, and so I think by
ninth grade, I knew I was going to be a nurse practitioner.”
There were years of schooling and a load of clinical hours
in St. Lucie County’s hospitals as Porth Healy worked toward
her goal. An excellent student, she always managed to get
ahead of the game. She took most of the required classes,
known as prereqs, for an application to the RN program at
IRSC under the state’s dual enrollment program, so that after
her high school graduation, she had only four classes to take
at IRSC before applying to the nursing program. While completing
the college’s RN program, she registered at Florida
Atlantic University as a non-degree-seeking student and took
one of the prereqs for the Bachelor of Science in nursing each
semester she was at IRSC. She did this while completing clinical
hours for her RN classes and working in the medical field.
Porth Healy went to work as an RN in the medical-surgical
unit and then the intensive care unit at St. Lucie Medical Center
in 2005, supporting herself as she furthered her studies at
FAU. She bought her first house at 21.
“When I got to Florida Atlantic University, they had an
advanced program where you could shave a year off if you
knew what you wanted to do,” she says. “So in three and a
half years, I earned my bachelor’s, my master’s and my nurse
practitioner degrees.”
38 Port St. Lucie Magazine
>>
BY PATTIE DURHAM
ANTHONY INSWASTY PHOTOS
Lindsey Porth Healy went through advanced nursing courses at a fast pace and now enjoys seeing patients in her practice with Dr. Mark Pamer in St. Lucie
West. A nurse practitioner in rheumatology, she diagnoses and treats patients at her office on Lake Whitney Drive.