Farin Bala is a nationally certified physician assistant specializing in cardiology with VCU Health. She received her Master of Physician Assistant at Eastern Virginia Medical School and has provided cardiovascular care for Virginia patients for over 15 years. She joined VCU Health's Pauley Heart Center in 2015, providing inpatient management, periprocedural care, and stress testing before joining the outpatient cardiology team at VCU's Colonial Square location. Farin treats patients with heart conditions, including coronary artery disease, hypertension, valve diseases, arrhythmias, and heart failure. She is passionate about providing excellent cardiology care to the patients and families in the Tri-Cities area and surrounding communities.

Dr. Brant is a pulmonary critical care attending physician at Hunter Holmes McGuire VAMC since the summer of 2011. He is currently their medical ICU director and chair of their Combined Special Care Committee which is tasked with overseeing the administration of critical care throughout the hospital. He also has an outpatient pulmonary practice where COPD is the most commonly treated medical condition. He thanks you for the opportunity to present today and is very excited to be here.

Delegate Dawn M. Adams is a doctoral prepared nurse practitioner with nearly thirty-five years of diverse clinical and administrative health care experience. Dawn was first elected to the House of Delegates in 2017, and was reelected in 2019, to represent a District that covers parts of Richmond, Chesterfield, and Henrico. She is the first and only openly lesbian legislator in the Commonwealth's 400 year history. Her legislative focus is Healthcare, particularly around issues affecting elderly and vulnerable populations, and creating solutions to increase access and drive down the cost of care.

Debbie is a Nurse Practitioner at the Parkinson's Disease Research, Education, and Clinical Care Center (PADRECC) at McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia. She received a BS in Nursing from The Medical College of Georgia in 1983 and master's degree in Nursing from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2012. Debbie is a board-certified Nurse Practitioner.
Debbie joined the PADRECC team in 2015. As part of her duties for the PADRECC center at the Richmond VA, Debbie utilizes Telehealth to see Veterans who live remotely with Parkinson's Disease as well as face-to-face encounters. She helps to facilitate the Parkinson's Disease support group and the National Movement Disorder Series for the VA hospital systems.

Ms. Kirby Williams has been a psychiatric nurse practitioner for over 10 years. Her career as a Psych NP has been in a variety of settings including inpatient, community mental health, private practice, primary care and academia working with the adult patient population. She currently owns a private psychiatric practice in Richmond, VA. Through her company The PMHNP Source, LLC she offers services consultation and career coaching to new and novice psychiatric nurse practitioners.

Dana Burns is a clinical associate professor with Virginia Commonwealth University and a practicing Family Nurse Practitioner with VCU Health Internal Medicine Department Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. She obtained nurse practitioner training at Columbia University and doctoral degree from Florida Atlantic University. Dr. Burns expertise is in resilience and mindfulness in the clinical and academic environments. She a member of the VCU Health /VCU School of Nursing Strength in Caring HRSA Wellness Grant team investigating strength based leadership and organizational dynamics impact on clinician wellness, resilience and intent to stay. Her current projects include improving nurse practitioner education through the implementation of innovative clinical education models with a focus on interprofessional team pedagogy. Dana is the clinician lead of an interprofessional team with the NP/PharmD Diabetes Management Clinic with VCU Health in Richmond and satellite program with VCU Community Memorial Hospital in South Hill, Virginia.