SUNA Spotlight:  Pati Church

 

 

Great Lakes SUNA will be profiling a member each month starting with April. This inaugural profile features Pati Church, a fairly-new SUNA member who became certified as a Urology Nurse Practitioner last October.

 

Pati’s motto for life is “Live well, laugh often and love much.” And that pretty much sums up the life of a urologic nurse.

 

Currently employed by Dr. Patrick Hurley at the Michigan Urological Institute where she has worked since May 2004, Pati’s main role there is the education of their patients. She also performs Urodynamics and assists with a multitude of in-office procedures.

 

“We see patients of all ages for a wide variety of urology problems,” explains Pati, who resides in Royal Oak with her husband and 14-month-old daughter.

 

Before coming to the MUI, an affiliate of Providence Hospital, Pati worked for Planned Parenthood of Southeast Michigan (2003) providing a complete range of gynecological and family planning services and at Providence (1998-2003) as a staff nurse on the general/vascular/GYN/GU surgery unit.

 

Aside from SUNA, Pati is a member of the Michigan Council of Nurse Practitioners and the University of Michigan Alumni Association. She graduated with a BSN from U of M in 1997 and later received her MSN as a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner from Wayne State in 2001.

 

“The two main reasons I chose urology as a secondary specialty were my strong interests in female incontinence and prostate cancer,” said Pati. “I joined SUNA in order to meet my colleagues practicing in urology. I believe it is a great networking organization and that we can all learn from each other. SUNA does a wonderful job of educating its members and I also feel it is a great way to enhance what I already know while also learning about new practice trends.”