Finding the Perfect Career through the NHSC
The beginning of 2003 was an unsettling time for Tina Carlson, M.S.Ed. Her husband, who was stationed with the military in Alaska, was likely to be deployed to Iraq, and she was a new mother with no family nearby.
To make things worse, the mental health clinic in Anchorage, where Carlson worked, had gone bankrupt. She wondered how and where she was going to get a job in order to continue her career as a mental health provider working with Native Americans.
The answer was posted on the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Job Opportunities List on the Web. Five years earlier, Carlson read and saved an article about a clinician who had received student loan repayment assistance from the NHSC. In return, the clinician agreed to work at a rural health clinic in a small Montana community, which was something Carlson had done in the past and loved. She re-read the article before starting her job search, and that led her to the NHSC Web site.
One of the NHSC job listings that Carlson found was for a mental health counselor in the Behavioral Health Services Department of Memorial Medical Center (MMC) in Ashland, Wisconsin. The town is located near Lake Superior, and the surrounding area is home to both the Red Cliff and the Bad River Bands of the Lake Superior Chippewa tribe. It is also near where Carlson grew up and attended graduate school at the University of Wisconsin.
The NHSC position at MMC was what Carlson had always wanted—a career providing mental health counseling to children, adults, and families, as well as the chance to work with Native Americans. Although her past work was focused mainly on children and teens, Carlson has been able to expand her practice at MMC to include marriage and family counseling. “I’ve really wanted to expand into doing marriage and family work,” she explains. “So I’m now able to flex my therapeutic muscles, and do new things. This is my dream job!”
Carlson’s new position also allowed her to come home again to a rural area where her extended family lives. Now that Carlson is close to home, her parents finally were able to meet her husband, Ted, and their 1-year-old son, Quinton, for the first time. Carlson feels lucky to be working in such a positive, safe environment so close to her family. She also relishes living in a town where Lake Superior is visible from almost any street.
MMC is the only hospital for three upper Wisconsin counties—Ashland, Bayfield, and Iron. Its Behavioral Health Services facility provides inpatient and outpatient mental health services, in addition to a day treatment facility, and a 24-hour crisis line. There is a team approach to health care, and lots of service coordination. This enables Carlson to provide the necessary services, herself, or refer patients to the appropriate person, knowing that her patients will always get the care they need.
Carlson has been surprised at the great need for mental health services in her new location. “I have adults here over 35 who have never had mental health counseling, and they are very symptomatic,” she says.
She also sees many more Native American clients at MMC than she did in previous jobs. “The Native Americans here are far more willing to get counseling than they were in Alaska,” she finds. “I think that is because services have been available in Wisconsin a lot longer, and they know how they can benefit from them.”
As in most rural areas, the types of mental health problems that Carlson’s patients deal with include depression, substance abuse, child abuse and neglect, family dysfunction, and behavioral disorders. Carlson’s work with her clients is usually long-term. “In their first session I say that I don’t have a ‘magic wand’,” she explains, “and that the problem developed over time; therefore, the solution will take time as well.”
Carlson still checks the NHSC Web site to read “Front Line” articles about what other NHSC practitioners are doing around the United States. “I find the stories about the other practitioners inspiring,” she notes. “I hope people read these stories and get a sense of what the different places are like. I want them to know that even though these are often small communities, you just may fall in love, and find everything that you’re looking for.”
Carlson has always wanted to get an M.D. in psychiatry. She is considering going to medical school, with the idea of applying for another NHSC Loan Repayment award after she completes her training. “If I do go to med school, I’ll come back to Ashland to practice,” she adds. “I’m so happy in this community, I plan on being here forever.”
