Frances Strzempko Ahmad, PMHNP

Fran graduated with her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts.

She spent a few years as a Registered Nurse in a variety of settings, including labor, delivery, postpartum care at Baystate Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital. She also was an Adolescent Psychiatric Clinical Nurse Specialist at Putnam Vocational High School in Springfield, MA. As part of a faculty practice role at the University of MA Amherst, she was responsible for developing and implementing a mental health clinic within an existing school-based health clinic. She provided psychiatric mental health care to adolescents through art therapy, individual counseling, family counseling and educational groups with a focus on issues of healthy relationships, sexuality and the special needs of adolescents in foster care. She worked collaboratively with teachers, social services, and health clinic staff to address comprehensive health needs of an underserved population.

Wanting to continue her career path and focus on mental health, Fran completed her Masters of Nursing, Psychiatric Mental Health, at the University of Massachusetts.

She has a great deal of experience working as a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, including working at Fred Finch Youth Center, where she was responsible for the clinical care of program participants of transitional age youth in a community setting. Fran provided psychiatric and medical evaluation, diagnostic assessment, medication evaluation and medication support. She was active in supporting and implementing recovery philosophy and providing individualized, strengths-based, culturally competent and family centered care with a high risk, culturally diverse population. She also provided in-person and telehealth general psychiatric services, consultations, psychopharmacology and psychotherapy at Silicon Valley TMS.

She continued her education and completed her PhD and Post Masters Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner training from the University of California, San Francisco. Her doctoral research examining the relational aspect of living with chronic pelvic pain from endometriosis was funded by the NIH.

Most recently, she spent nearly a decade working with patients optimizing physical and mental health by optimizing hormone health, with a focus on preventive holistic medicine, metabolic disease management, and weight loss.