Our Nurses of the Week are Sabrina Kopf, ACNP-BC, and her husband and fellow DNP student Scott Kopf, ACNP-BC, who recently graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program. They are the first husband-wife team to earn their doctorates simultaneously as part of UAB’s Post-MSN to DNP Pathway program.

Scott and Sabrina share a lot in common. They are both acute care nurse practitioners, both work with transplant patients at UAB hospital (Scott with lung transplant patients and Sabrina with heart transplant patients), and are both adjunct clinical instructors in the school’s Master of Science in Nursing Program, Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Specialty Track.

The couple first met in 2007 at UAB Hospital where Scott would bring patients from the Emergency Department to Sabrina on the Trauma and Burn Intensive Care Unit. They eventually started dating in 2009, then married in 2011, and have now graduated together during UAB’s 2017 summer commencement ceremony and doctoral hooding which was held on August 12.

Scott tells UAB.edu, “As nurse practitioners, we both saw the need for the DNP degree because it would give us more skills to improve patient outcomes and help us have more impact on health care as a whole. We thought it would be good to go together because we knew we would have a good support system throughout the DNP program and at home.”

Their built-in buddy system while completing their DNP was beneficial to both, allowing them to provide encouragement, support, and feedback when they needed it. A unique relationship for two nurses following similar career paths, they treasure their bond as husband and wife, and as nurses and students. To learn more about Sabrina and Scott’s shared path to nursing, visit here.

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