A version of this story first appeared in the 2025 issue of On Call, a publication of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga College of Nursing.
UTC Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program students Christine Macias and Douglas Wilson. Photo by Angela Foster.
Christine Macias and Douglas Wilson aren’t new to being newcomers.
This fall, they entered the first cohort of the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) program at UTC, a concentration within the Doctor of Nursing Practice program.
In January 2024, they were among the first Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) students at UTC when they enrolled as part of the program’s second cohort.
Dr. Jason Peter, Mary B. Jackson assistant professor and coordinator of the PMHNP program, said their path highlights how UTC is addressing urgent health care needs.
“The accelerated program really helped speed them through the process to get to the graduate-level program,” Peter said. “They’ve already had a bachelor’s degree in something, and they knew that they wanted to be a nurse and a psychiatric nurse practitioner. They’re motivated and driven, and they can take all of their life experience and apply that clinically.
“With the rising mental health concerns in our society, coupled with the retiring of psychiatrists, mental health nurse practitioners are going to be in great need—and it’s just going to continue to increase.”
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For Macias, it was her experience working in a nail salon that inspired her to join the PMHNP program.
“Being in the beauty industry and dealing with clients for 24 years that I see on a two-week to monthly basis, I just built a relationship with those people,” Macias said. “Mental health is huge when it comes to quality of life. I was with a lot of those women through all of their experiences.”
That role as a listener and confidante shaped her interest in mental health, but her family life provided even more motivation. A mother of four, she recently learned her 4-year-old son has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
“I was like, ‘This is going to be a good opportunity for me to learn how to deal with this and to help others have access to the right resources, whether it be medication and/or behavioral therapy,” she said.
Macias said her education is giving her the tools to better support her son and other families facing similar challenges. Working third shift at Parkridge Valley Hospital’s child and adolescent campus has deepened her understanding of children dealing with behavioral and emotional issues.
She hopes to one day pursue a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry.
“My son was my inspiration,” she said. “Going through the ABSN program and now the PMHNP program feels like the right path because it gives me the knowledge to help my own family and to help other parents who are facing the same challenges.”
For Wilson, the decision to join the PMHNP program was rooted in a long-standing interest in psychology.
“I’ve always been curious about people, probably more so than I am about organ systems and enzymes,” Wilson said. “I knocked the idea around going back to school as a counselor, but there’s something about having a nursing degree and working in nursing that I just think is more stable and offers you more opportunities.”
Born and raised in New Jersey, Wilson built his early career in clinical research. After graduating from Vanderbilt University, he worked at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York as a project manager overseeing National Institutes of Health-funded studies in kidney and liver transplant, then moved into financial operations at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
By 2021, he was ready for a change of pace. During a cross-country road trip, he made a stop in Chattanooga.
“I thought it was a cool-looking town,” he said. “Everything’s very accessible. People are friendly … It’s just got a perfect balance.”
Not long after, Wilson discovered the UTC ABSN program, which offered him a direct path into nursing and, eventually, the PMHNP program.
“I was very close to going to medical school, but a couple of life things popped up at the time that kind of derailed my path,” he said. “Years later, the idea of nursing entered my brain because I still had that med school itch.
“Nursing is more flexible and there’s a wide variety of things you can do quicker.”
Wilson said the accelerated pace of the ABSN program helped prepare him for the expectations of graduate study.
“I think the (ABSN) program prepared me very well for this,” he said. “Being in the first PMHNP class feels like the right next step.”
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