Deborah Moss-Gail was just a few days into her new job on Nantucket, but she was already hearing the feedback from the community.
“Universally, I’ve heard ‘oh my gosh, we need you’,” she said.
That’s because Moss-Gail is a nurse practitioner who just joined Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s outpatient clinic. The island has long been identified as having a shortage of primary care providers, so Moss-Gail’s addition to the medical staff last week was welcomed inside and outside the hospital.
Moss-Gail is fluent in Spanish, and spent nearly a decade practicing medicine at health centers in North Philadelphia that provide care to underserved populations.
“I’ve worked in underserved communities where immigration status and language barriers inhibited patients from seeking care and it really presents a unique challenge for both the patients and the providers,” said Moss-Gail. “It demands a level of creativity and commitment to the patient, to really understand them and their individual needs, so I’m really looking forward to learning more about our community’s health needs.”
Moss-Gail, along with her husband and 18-month old daughter Hannah, have relocated to Nantucket full-time and secured housing. Her husband’s family had previously owned a home on the island for decades, so the couple is well acquainted with Nantucket.
Prior to joining NCH, Deborah was a professor at Temple University College of Public Health’s Department of Nursing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
“I don’t think it’s unique to the island that it’s a moment where there’s such a need in healthcare,” she said. “Providers are weary, so that’s a piece of the dynamic that I knew I was coming back in with some fresh energy…Everyone is aware of the need (for primary care). It’s been that kind of welcome, and it’s been a little humbling.”
Moss-Gail expects to be seeing many of the patients who were previously assigned to Dr. Joel Hass, who left the hospital’s outpatient clinic last May, along with many of the hospital’s Spanish-speaking patients.
