Nicole Harris, APRN-CNP

Nurse Practitioner at Nerve Renewal Clinic, located in Midwest City.

story by Van Mitchell, Staff Writer

Nicole Harris, APRN-CNP, a Nurse Practitioner at Nerve Renewal Clinic, located at 8121 National Avenue, Suite 105 in Midwest City, grew up in a nursing family, but nursing was not her first career choice.
“I actually wanted to be Barbara Walters,” she said. “In my mind I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to join the Peace Corps and travel the world. My first two years were actually in journalism school at St. Gregory’s University and I wrote for the school newspaper. After two years of doing that, I ended up switching and going to nursing school.”
Harris got an early jump on her nursing career.
“I was a nursing assistant from the time I was 16, and I worked in long-term care assisted living,” she said. “My mother was a nurse and she was a director of nursing, it was almost genetic because I felt called to it. I really started pretty young.”
Harris received her bachelor’s degree from Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, and her master’s degree from Chamberlain University in Chicago in 2017.
She is finishing up her Doctorate of Nursing degree from Frontier University in Kentucky, and has served as an adjunct nursing professor at Oklahoma City University, SWOSU, and Rose State College.
“The goal is that I can continue teaching and being a professor,” she said. “What I’m doing right now is fabulous. It just sort of opened up more potential opportunities. Continuing education helps you because when you’re confident in your role, you generally have a better feeling about what you’re doing.”
Harris worked in several hospital settings working in oncology, palliative care, and ICU.
“Those experiences led me to want to become a nurse practitioner,” she said. “Initially I worked in internal medicine at St. Anthony’s Hospital, well, a clinic at St. Anthony’s, and then in internal medicine. I just really felt called to go back into working with seniors and geriatrics.”
Harris also has experience in palliative care and hospice work.
“Most all of my experience is with adults and geriatrics because not only am I fulfilled professionally, but I feel like it’s just where my best fit is,” she said. “My degree is family practice, so I can kind of do a little bit of all ages.”
Harris said her career path recently led her to Nerve Renewal.
“I’ve been with the Midwest City Clinic for a few months,” she said. “They advertised to add another nurse practitioner to this clinic. Nerve Renewal just sort of fits all of my prior experience. This clinic allows me to still work with adults and geriatrics and help them. Everything I’ve done in the past with helping people in their homes, helping people in long-term care, it’s sort of seeing that long-term reward.”
Nerve Renewal treatments are FDA-approved and use a drug-free treatment which involves electrical stimulation combined with a vitamin B-12 complex nutrient blend that helps reduce neuropathy-related nerve pain and does not require recovery time after treatment.
Harris said it’s enjoyable watching patients get pain relief from their neuropathy.
“The most enjoyment I get is seeing people improve and seeing that I am helping them with their daily lives,” she said.
Harris is no stranger to hard work. It is a work ethic she learned from her mother and grandmother.
“My mother and my grandmother were both nurses,” she said. “My grandmother was a psychiatric nurse and my mother started out in labor and delivery. We all had different paths, but it was interesting growing up because you could hear how hard they worked, but how much joy they got out of helping people in their lives. I just had a lot of respect for both of them, and I just got a different viewpoint. I had a realistic view of nursing because I got to see the hard work, the effort they put into it. But, also you got to see all of the joy and the positive from helping the care people. It’s been very rewarding.”
Harris is married to her husband Chris, a graphic designer. The couple have two sons, one at Oklahoma State University majoring in business and finance. Their younger son is a high school senior, and has been accepted at Missouri Science and Technology, where he will major in chemical engineering and biomedical engineering.
Harris said she likes to spend her time away from work with family, friends and her two dogs.
“I have really great family and friends, and I play with my dogs every day,” she said. “I have a miniature Australian Shepherd named Merlot, and then I have a mixed breed dog named Libby, who is kind of goofy and high maintenance herself.”
Harris said she also enjoys reading, and taking hiking trips.
“We’re going in October to the Grand Canyon and we’re doing a two-day hike in the Grand Canyon,” she said. “I just love it. It really does. It’s a stress reliever, it’s great exercise and just getting outside when you can. To me it’s so important to physical health and mental health.”

For more information about Nerve Renewal visit https://nerverenewalnow.com/