Nikki Barker Returns to Roots As Newest Family Nurse Practitioner
Posted on Friday, January 24th, 2020
Nikki Barker, APRN-FNP, Family Nurse Practitioner
Nikki Barker, APRN-FNP, has returned to her roots to begin a career as a primary care provider in the clinic of Mercy Health/Love County Hospital. Barker grew up in Marietta and graduated with the high school Class of 2006.
The Family Nurse Practitioner began seeing patients in December 2019. “My duties in the clinic are to treat patients from age 0 to elderly,” Barker said, adding, “I feel blessed to be here in this community, in this role, and working alongside the people who helped raise me. It’s an honor.”
One of the clinic’s providers, Patricia Owens, has been particularly influential. “Pat’s the reason I became a Family Nurse Practitioner,” Barker said. “I’ve known her since I was a baby, and after working in the emergency room and being a nurse, I wanted to be able to do more in medicine and that meant becoming a nurse practitioner like Pat. She’s an inspiration and has touched so many people in her years here, it is just surreal to me to be working alongside her now.”
Barker also paid tribute to Director of Nursing Marie Ross as her guide and mentor in bedside nursing.
Other good vibes for medicine have come from Barker’s parents, Richard and Connie, who have served the hospital and clinic since the 1970s and 1980s, respectively. And, Nikki’s younger sister, Alise, is in the family profession, too, as a registered nurse in Ardmore.
For the past 14 years, Nikki has been working and studying in the medical field in Oklahoma and Texas. With each step along the way, Barker said she has been gaining valuable experience and leadership and exploring how to help patients in a primary care setting.
“My motto is, let’s figure out together what is wrong, and teach me.”she said. Returning to an area she is so familiar with is helpful because she knows where the resources are and how to help.
For the five years prior to joining the clinic, Barker was a hospital trauma nurse in Plano, TX, where she rose to the level of charge nurse at the Level 2 trauma center. She has previous experience at Mercy Health/Love County Hospital as a registered nurse and emergency room registrar. In the clinic she served a graduate student practicum with Owens in 2018.
Barker earned the master of nursing and FNP degree from Chamberlain University in 2019; certification in business administration from Keller Graduate School of Management, DeVry University in 2015; bachelor of science in nursing from East Central University in 2013; and associate of science and RN degree from Murray State College in 2010.
To make an appointment with Nikki Barker, patients may call the clinic at (580) 276-2400.