Growing up in Southwest Harbor, Katy Lawson, FNP, always knew she wanted to live and practice medicine in the community where she was raised. And today, after three years practicing in Bangor, she is Mount Desert Island Hospital’s newest family nurse practitioner splitting her time between off-site senior care and family medicine.
Even though Lawson’s first day seeing patients was June 1, she already knows many of the people she will be caring for. “I think the most exciting thing to me is being able to be a part of and serve the community I grew up with,” she said. “It’s a little scary knowing every patient you’re going to see or they know your grandfather or your cousin’s uncle. But in the same sense it’s very rewarding, especially in geriatrics, because it’s a time when people are starting to need that extra support.”
Lawson is a part of MDI Hospital’s Care Management team and will be visiting patients in area nursing homes and long term care facilities such as Sonogee, Collier’s, Birch Bay Retirement Village as well as home visits. Her passion for geriatric care came about by chance and it turned into “the best happy accident ever,” she said. “It happened to be the best job to help me pay off my school loans and I just fell in love with it.”
In addition to her senior patient population, she welcomes patients of all ages to her family practice 1-2 days a week at Cooper-Gilmore Health Center.
Lawson, her husband, Justin Norwood, and their two daughters, live in Bar Harbor and make the most of Mount Desert Island’s renowned hiking, biking, kayaking.