Gina Hardage-Athetis, MSc, FNP-CB, PsyD, PhD

Dr. Gina Hardage-Athetis began her health care career as charge nurse in labor and delivery, newborn nursery, neonatal intensive care, and postpartum care. She progressed through the hospital system acquiring experience in adult/pediatric medical surgical patient care, step-down ICU and nephrology. After leaving Oklahoma, with her husband and 2 children, she began a position as an Occupational Health Nurse for Navajo Generating Station, in Page, Arizona. It was the second largest coal powered generating station in the nation. During her six years at Navajo Generating Station, she was responsible for delivering care for occupational injuries, taught injury prevention programs, conducted medical surveillance exams, and was privileged to work with Navajo Nation and Hopi employees, integrating their cultural beliefs and treatments in combination with western medicine under the direction/standing orders of her medical director, whom resided in Phoenix, Arizona. Navajo Generating Station had a robust safety program, which included thirty-one EMT’s, and an ambulance. Safety was the number one priority at Navajo Generating Station, managed by the Salt River Project.  

After leaving Page, Arizona, following her husband’s job transfer to Phoenix Metropolis area’s surrounding cities, she became the first registered nurse to start a school-based free childhood immunization program, in cooperation with Maricopa Public Health Department in Mesa Arizona, the largest school district in Arizona. Simultaneously, she was a school nurse in a title-one school with high-risk students; many students had school-based medical needs. In her role as a school nurse, she was also the health educator and child abuse coordinator. She continued in this role for seven years prior to beginning a Master of Science program in the University of Phoenix’s Family Nurse Practitioner track. Her program was a year-round, 3.5-year program, which included pediatric and women’s health rotations, and a 2-year fellowship with a family practice physician. Her experiences in her fellowship program gave her the confidence and experience to practice evidence-based medicine with expert confidence and optimal safety. One of her first Family Nurse Practitioner positions was at the largest Family Practice Clinic in the southwest.  

After moving from Fountain Hills, Arizona, she worked for Take Care Health Systems who merged with Premise Health, which led to a lateral move to Premise Health, contracted position at Intel Health Care Center in Chandler, Arizona. She delivered care to Intel employes in a family practice setting. After her daughter moved to Tucson, she laterally transferred to a one-provider clinic, delivering episodic care, chronic health disease management, preventative health screening and education and HIV prevention known as PrEP.  

She started preparing to transition to addiction care and counseling following her son’s substance use disorder after he passed six months prior to graduation from her Master of Science/Family Nurse Practitioner program in 2007. This preparation included nineteen years of research in addiction medicine, and earning advanced certification in substance use disorders, specializing in opioid use disorders through Purdue University. She earned a doctorate in psychology, specializing in grief, trauma, and loss counseling, and a PhD in general psychology after a merger between Breyer State Theology University in Florida with California Pacificatory University in San Diego, California, an Accreditation Service for International Schools, Colleges, & Universities (ASIC) in seventy countries including the US. Its home base is in the United Kingdom. During her twelve years in family practice, she worked with alcohol addiction, facilitated care for patients with substance use disorders, and spent many hours counseling patients, and families with substance use disorders. Her personal experience with her son’s barriers to addiction care, and evidence based learning through nineteen years of research, which included reasons for barriers to addiction care, and stigmatization, was a powerful catalyst in understanding all aspects of addiction care, and the development of Andrew’s Compassionate Care Legacy, by acquiring expert knowledge to render safe, compassionate addiction, and dual diagnosis care.