Meet the Team: Katie Young, MSN, RN, PMHNP-BC
Katie Young is new to our team, but it’s safe to say she grew up with the Rochester Center for Behavioral Medicine. She is the daughter of RCBM founder and Medical Director Joel Young and Mindy Layne Young, who works at the clinic as a therapist and corporate counsel.
Katie has always been interested in her parents’ work. We are proud to welcome her to our team as one of a growing number of psychiatric nurse practitioners.
“My approach to psychiatry is to ask a lot of questions,” Young says. “I try to be welcoming and validating. I think that building a therapeutic relationship between the practitioner and the client is paramount, and without this, it’s hard to make strides with care.”
Katie joined our staff in October and is accepting patients of all ages. She works three days a week, alternating with her other job as a pediatric registered nurse in the child and adolescent psychiatry unit at the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor.
“I like to get the family involved. I like to hear from parents, brothers, sisters,” Katie adds. “I think that the more a family can be engaged and involved and motivated for change, the better the results.”
Young began her career working as a nurse in pulmonary medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where she worked in the intensive care unit.
“While working in pulmonary medicine, I realized that, while I liked that aspect of bedside care, I really wanted to get to know the individual and the type of psychosocial element of each person’s story,” she says.
After two years in Chicago, Young moved back to Ann Arbor, where she had previously been an undergrad student at the University of Michigan School of Nursing, and got a job working at U-M’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in the child and adolescent psychiatry units. She spent a year there, then moved to Philadelphia to pursue a master’s degree in psychiatric mental health nursing at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I’ve always been drawn to psychiatry,” she says. “I’m really interested in the story behind each person and treating the person as the whole and not just as a diagnosis.”
Young sees a strong overlap between mental and physical health and believes the two usually go hand in hand. It’s part of what she says is her approach for treating the whole person, going beyond the surface or a diagnosis to get to know each patient and uncover what makes them unique.
She also draws from her roughly 10 years practicing yoga to inform her counseling. In 2013, Young underwent a 200-hour registered yoga teacher training program.
“Yoga and mindfulness are about coming as you are without judgment or resistance,” she says. “These are daily practices of mine that I incorporate into the care of my patients. Research has validated the positive effects of meditation on mood and cognition. I believe leveraging mindfulness can improve outcomes for patients.”
When she’s not working, Young enjoys trying new foods, traveling, and spending time with family, friends and her two golden retrievers. She lives in Ann Arbor with her fiancé, Marc, a third-year medical student at U-M. They plan to marry in May of 2020.
