Joemon Joy, Nurse Practitioner

Hi. Namaskaram. Namaste. My name is Joe. I'm a Nurse Practitioner at Joyceville Institution. I have only positive things to say about the teamwork here. I'm fortunate to work with a great team of health-care workers here and we collaborate well. We work as a family. My experience as an emergency nurse definitely helped me in corrections.

It is challenging, but my background experience does help me to manage semi-acute cases here. When I started my career in CSC, to be honest, it was a little daunting. I was a little scared to work in a prison, but it was a great learning opportunity for me, personally and professionally. The thing I enjoyed most with working with offenders are, most of them when they come to corrections, they never had any previous health-care encounters before or they didn't have any primary care practitioners.

So, this probably is the first time they met a health-care professional in so many years. It's challenging as well as rewarding. So, when we interview them, when we listen to their concerns and treat them, the response I got from the inmates are like that's a drive that, you know, drives me forward.

We talk a lot about mutual respect here. When an inmate comes to my office, I respect him as a person. And I always tell the patient that I'm seeing you as a patient, not as an inmate.

Corrections gives you a lot of opportunity to grow. So, I'm currently working as a Nurse Practitioner, but I can see there are many management jobs. There are leadership roles that I can contribute better. So, if you want to excel in your career and push forward in your career, there's always opportunity here.

Working in a prison, I really enjoy working in here. There is a great work-life balance. That's what I really appreciate about working in corrections. I love my job and I love coming here.

And I go home happy, telling myself that I made a difference today.