Health Care Heroes 2025
NURSE PRACTITIONER: Julie L’Europa
PACE Organization of Rhode Island nurse practitioner and primary care provider
What led you to choose health care as your profession? All my life, I have been motivated by my compassion for others and sought out nursing as a venue to demonstrate my skills and intuitive gifts. I chose nursing after giving birth to my daughter and wished for others to look up to me in the way I did for the nurses that cared for me during that process.
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How have you helped boost the quality of access to health care? I have learned the importance of health care access as it relates to quality of life, of health and health care utilization. As a nurse practitioner and throughout my past experiences working at community health centers and also teaching nursing students, my role is to provide public awareness of and access to medical care to those who are most impacted by health disparities and health inequities.
What is the biggest challenge you and your organization are facing this year? The ongoing need for financial support to our federal and state agencies that rely on public funding to maintain their mission to provide comprehensive medical, behavioral health and social supports to our most vulnerable populations of Rhode Island.
Are you confident patient access and quality of care will improve in Rhode Island over the next five years? Why or why not? Honestly, I feel apprehensive to how our health care access and quality of care will transpire over the next four years, as the political environment has recently demonstrated a movement toward decreasing access to public health information and lack of public funding to women’s health and transgender care. I am hopeful that local residents and elected officials will strive to maintain the health access we have built together to prevent critical health disparities from further emerging in our state.
