Nina Kerr-Bryant has been a working paramedic since 1983*, starting with Buck Ambulance in multiple Oregon counties.  She finished her 911 transport career at North Country EMS, a district in Washington State encompassing rural north Clark County, part of the Gifford Pinchot Forest and the southeastern flanks of Mount St. Helens—a district without even a clinic, let alone a hospital, in its 1000+ square miles.  Her appreciation of alternatives to 911 transport evolved in her exposure to the isolated and often poverty-stricken residents of areas within North Country’s district, people who often knew of no resources (medical or otherwise) except for the 911 responders.  She trained in Community Paramedicine at OIT/OHSU in 2015 and landed a job as a CP in Columbia County in December 2017, where she has worked happily—and beautifully supported by the various departmental and County agencies—since.

(*proving that you may grow old but you don’t need to grow up!)