Leading by example

^{Above: Beth Good, a psychiatric/mental health clinical nurse specialist, celebrates the graduation of her daughter Alexis Grieves, who is now a psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner.}

Beth Good, DNP, APRN, PMHCNS, has always been a leader. A self-proclaimed early adopter, she was drawn to the Doctor of Nursing Practice Program’s psychiatric/mental health specialty while teaching psychiatric nursing classes at the University with professor emeritus Merrie Kaas, who would later become her adviser.

Good went on to implement her doctoral project of integrating depression care management into the primary care setting in Mora, Minnesota, and started integrated behavioral health at Welia Health System before launching her own, community-based practice to make an even bigger impact.

What she didn’t realize at the time was the influence she was having on her daughter, Alexis Grieves, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC.

Although some of her earliest memories are of accompanying her mom to campus when she taught psychopathology, including a recollection of handing out Easter candy to her mom’s students, Alexis wasn’t interested in nursing. She wanted to go into fashion design.

“I was super passionate about it and my parents were always very supportive,” said Grieves. “Never once were they like ‘you should really think about going into nursing or consider this instead.’”

In her senior year of high school Grieves reached conclusion that fashion wasn’t her path and realized what she truly liked was listening and talking to people.

“Well, my mom’s been doing this her whole life,” she recalled thinking at the time. And that was when she realized there might be a future in nursing for her.

It was at that point that mother shared with daughter how she could still be creative in a nursing role working with patients and in treatment plans.

Grieves enrolled at the College of Saint Benedict, where her choice to become a nurse was quickly affirmed, although perhaps somewhat differently than many of her classmates.

“I’d tell all my preceptors in undergrad that I’m not a big fan of blood and needles so if I pass out, that’s probably what it is. They’d respond, ‘And you want to become a nurse?’ I’d remind them there’s another kind of nurse, psych mental health.”

Taking the next step

Not surprisingly, Good also played a role in Grieves’ decision to pursue her DNP at her alma mater. She invited her daughter to be her guest at the School of Nursing’s All School Reunion in 2017. There they met Katherine Todd, DNP, MBA, RN, who was receiving the Alumni Society’s Rising Star Award and her daughter who was finishing her DNP degree at the School of Nursing.

“Alexis was able to meet these other women who were in the field already making positive connections and creating change in systems,” Good recalls.

Those encounters and the University’s focus on research encouraged Grieves to enroll at the School of Nursing. She earned her degree in 2022. Now a psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner herself in Honolulu, Hawaii, Grieves has an even greater appreciation for her mother’s impact, not just on herself but the profession.

“My mom is very inspiring and has been very inspiring to me,” says Grieves. “There’s something about giving people hope and inspiration about this field that my mom is excellent at. When I would meet people at work thinking about nursing, I’d say ‘you should talk to my mom and you’ll be convinced you should become a psych mental health nurse.’”

Still in Cambridge, Good continues to pave the way helping create resources for her patients, advocating for psych NPs in rural practices and passionately precepting students.

“I've had an administrative role, I've had the practitioner role, been an educator, and now I can put all of that together and just create a really rich experience for students because I can come from all those different roles that we can do,” she says. “At this point in my career, I feel like my job is to help as many people get into the profession.”