About Us

The Bridge RN Patient Advocates

Meet Melissa
Your RN Patient Advocate

Melissa Cardine RN

Melissa Cardine: MSN, RN, WOCN, BCPA
I have been a nurse for over 20 years. I received my Bachelor of Nursing in 1997 and my Masters in Nursing in 2002. My passion is listening to patients, families and care givers. I have done that at every turn in a nursing career that spans from complex home health care services and hospital nursing to opening a nationally recognized outpatient treatment center.

I truly believe that healing accelerates when patients and health care providers connect and build a common understanding of symptoms and goals. I believe this process is most effective when both sides of the healing dialog are informed about a comprehensive picture of a person’s situation. Unfortunately the current health care system limits the ability of both the patient and their health care providers to achieve this with regularity.

Healing accelerates when patients and health care providers connect and build a common understanding of symptoms and goals.

As a nurse I’ve seen how limited the time is that health care providers can devote to each patient. We don’t always have time to listen. Listen to who you are, what you have experienced, what your needs are, and what goals you have. We are focused on an acute situation. The here and now. I’ve watched the national model for delivering health care services become so narrowly focused that treatments are only for specific symptoms or ailments, but not for a person’s complete health. I want to help stem the tide.

During my Master’s program I developed a Geriatric Care Management program. I envisioned helping elderly people and their families navigate the health care system. I envisioned empowering people to be their own or their loved ones best advocate. Instead of pursuing that immediately I continued in my nursing career and built a family. I am a wife and mother of three wonderful children living in Gilbert, Arizona. The additional decade has been one of personal and professional growth, but my passion for listening to patient stories is still the same as the day I first became a nurse.

The Bridge is here to help you go from being diagnosed or labeled with a disease to finding your own defined place of healing.

In October 2015, that passion and the ideas I developed in my Master’s program, turned into action. I enrolled in the Independent RN Patient Advocate program through the University of Arizona and started The Bridge. It was time to share with others how they too can manage their own health. It was time to listen and educate clients on how to ask questions, understand their options, research alternatives, look at the big picture, and discover the root cause of their ailments whether physical, emotional, or spiritual.

The vision of The Bridge RN Patient Advocates is “Bridging the gaps from diagnosis to healing through personalized, holistic, RN advocacy”. Is it time you tell your story and heal yourself in order to live a life of wellbeing? The Bridge is here to help you go from being diagnosed or labeled with a disease to finding your own defined place of healing.

Patient Advocacy Affiliations

The Bridge RN Patient Advocates works with the following organizations in order to stay on top of health care trends and information.

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