Margaret Chipendo is a psychiatry Nurse Practitioner at Verve Collaborative Health in Omaha Nebraska. She holds a Post-Master’s Certificate in psychiatry from Maryville University in St Louis Missouri and is board certified through the American Nurses Credentialing Center as a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) as well as Psychiatry Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP). She began her training in nursing at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and went on to obtain her Bachelor of Science in Nursing Degree at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska. She later pursued her master of science in nursing at Clarkson College specializing in family nurse practice and received her post-masters certificate from Maryville University in Psychiatry mental health nurse practitioner.

For over 15 years, Margaret Chipendo has cared for pediatric, adolescent, and adult patients in a variety of settings including in-patient hospitals, urgent care clinics, outpatient clinics, skilled nursing facilities, Indian Health Services, and prisons in family, internal, and psychiatry medicine. She has dedicated the past seven years of her nursing career working with individuals in underserved areas, prisons, and urgent care clinics. Most of her focus in psychiatry has been directed towards patients with severe mental illness, substance use disorders, anxiety disorders including PTSD, ADHD, personality disorders, and dual diagnosis care.

Inspiration for severe mental illness management started prior to attending graduate studies. “I volunteered at a homeless shelter in undergraduate school which also served clients with severe mental illness and substance use disorders.” Margaret Chipendo recalls, “I was moved by the staff and community at the shelter, I needed to make a difference maybe in one or two patients and many years following. I remained connected to the shelter in different capacities including clothes donation today”. Those experiences paved the road for my career path in psychiatry.

Margaret is passionate about caring for patients with severe mental illnesses across the lifespan (from ages 5 to 80), anxiety disorders, depression, ADHD, personality disorders, and substance use disorders. Her primary role is medication management and helping patients live healthy lives knowing that they can live with mental illness, not in mental illness.

“I think it’s really important to take the stigma away from mental health…My brain and my heart are really important to me. I don’t know why I would not seek help to have those things be as healthy as my teeth.”

-Kerry Washington from the Huffington Post.