For more than 11 years, she was a registered nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She earned both her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Master of Science in Nursing, with a focus on holistic nursing, from Tennessee State University in Nashville, where she received the Outstanding Holistic Nursing Award. She also has a postgraduate master's in nursing from TSU and is a family nurse practitioner with a private holistic nursing practice in Nashville. While at TSU, she conducted stress and time management workshops for the incoming nursing students. She is a member of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, the American Holistic Nurses Association and Sigma Theta Tau nursing honor society.