Nurse Practitioner Taylor Robinson: ‘The Best Decision I’ve Made’

“I’m trying to learn how to cook,” says Taylor Robinson, MSN, APRN, AGACNP-BC, with a laugh.

For the board-certified nurse practitioner, who joined the clinical team at Beaufort Memorial Heart Specialists in January after three years as a registered nurse in the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU), working the night shift meant that easy meals — either to-go or compliments of the microwave — were pretty much the norm.

However, her new job and recent marriage have changed all that. For her bridal shower and Christmas, she asked for cookbooks. Friends obliged and threw in some “beautiful cutting boards” to boot.

“I’m learning to love being in the kitchen, learning to love making a mess — and cleaning up after myself as I cook,” Taylor says. “I’d also like my husband, Adam, to have a nice warm meal when he comes home.”

A recent triumph was the perfect venison tenderloin she produced, albeit after a try or two (or maybe three).

The smart money here would be on this: Five years from now, the fledgling chef will be a culinary whiz. That’s because setting a goal for herself and achieving it, in spades, has been her life’s throughline.

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Taking the Plunge

Growing up near Cape May, New Jersey, Taylor describes herself as a “nerd” who was crazy for biology and majored in the subject at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, where she earned her bachelor’s degree magna cum laude. She already knew that nursing was the profession for her, but a summer job in a local cardiologist’s office reset her sights a bit.

In the course of filing medical records and taking patients back to exam rooms, she became friendly with the practice’s nurse practitioner, a woman named Doreen, whom she admired a great deal.

“Doreen worked closely with the cardiologist, discussing patient care, and she set up a Coumadin clinic [to help patients on blood thinners ensure their medication dosage was correct],” Taylor says. “She really enjoyed and cared for her patients. The relationship she developed with them over the years seemed to be very personal, which is what I like to develop with my patients. I was impressed with how intelligent she was. And she was a female in a great role! I said, ‘This is what I want to be when I grow up.’”

Taylor’s first degree in hand, she headed to Drexel University in Philadelphia, graduating — once again magna cum laude — with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and from there, she came to Beaufort Memorial.

“I applied on a whim and moved 15 hours from home,” the nurse practitioner says. “It was the best decision I’ve made.”

Following the advice of her nursing school professors, who advised students to hone their patient assessment and time management skills before specializing, she started out as a medical-surgical nurse on the third floor, where staffers frequently treat patients with stroke, chest pain or congestive heart failure.

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Empathetic and On It

Occasionally, you encounter a person who walks into a room and immediately makes you feel better, a person whose quiet confidence quickly quiets your fears. Taylor is such a person — soft-spoken, empathetic and clearly on it.

She loved med-surg patient care — “Something about people being sick draws me,” she says — and also the technical aspects of her work. Frequently, she’d need to take patients, particularly those with worsening cardiac or respiratory symptoms, down to the progressive care unit (PCU), or step-down unit, for closer monitoring or more advanced procedures. Fascinated by those procedures, she soon excelled at performing them.

Critical care became her passion. She transferred to the PCU, serving over the next five years as both charge nurse and preceptor. Then, in July 2020, she joined the hospital’s ICU staff at the height of the pandemic. Taylor turns somber when describing that time.

“I don’t think words can ever express what providers and nurses or even all of the ancillary staff went through,” she says, her voice low. “I think being there firsthand is something you won’t forget and can’t really explain.”

Families were not able to visit, so their only connection with their loved ones was through the staff. The bond that grew between them was unique and profound. Sometimes, that bond was the only thing that preserved sanity and staved off despair.

“You got to know your patients through the family members, because usually the patients were on a ventilator, and you couldn’t speak to them,” Taylor says. “But you got to know them through talking with their mom, their brother, their children, seeing their friends who would call. That was big for us.”

Forever bound together by their own experience as well, the ICU nurses are still in touch with a few of the families. It’s a comfort for everyone.

“We got attached to a lot of our patients. When the patients passed, I think a little bit of us went with them.”

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Where Credit is Due

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The Big Surprise

Longtime partners and avid hikers, Taylor and Adam, who is a project engineer at Gulfstream, hatched a plan last summer to fly west and visit a couple of national parks. At Grand Teton, the off-the-beaten-path hike to Delta Lake would be the trip’s highlight.

With a 2,300-foot gain in elevation and plenty of switchbacks, the 8-mile round-trip climb was not easy. Guidebooks, famous for their understatement, would probably describe the route as “challenging.” But on the way up, the couple took breaks, and the lake at the summit, turquoise and crystalline, was, as advertised, breathtaking.

After a PB&J and a short nap, they were admiring the view.

“Let me take your picture,” Adam suggested.

You know what’s coming. Taylor turned around and found her partner down on his knee, ring in hand.

Wasn’t he worried he’d lose the diamond en route?

“That’s the best part of the story!” Taylor exclaims. “This is very Adam-like. Apparently, during the whole trip, I was carrying the ring in my book bag and had no idea.”

Taylor and other members of our heart care team can help improve your heart health. Call 843-770-4550 to schedule an appointment in Beaufort or Okatie.