Neura members can now book video appointments with Samantha McGill, NP

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Samantha H. McGill, NP, is a dedicated Nurse Practitioner specializing in general neurology with a particular focus in headache medicine. She holds a BSN from The Johns Hopkins University and an MS in Family Health Nursing from Emory University.

Prior to joining Neura, Samantha worked at Emory University's Brain Health Center and inpatient neurohospitalist teams. She believes the most effective treatment plans combine pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic care, and is committed to providing excellent, holistic care that supports each patient through every aspect of their neurological health.

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Video Transcript: 

 My name is Samantha McGill. I am a family nurse practitioner. I have been since 2016. I've been in neurology that entire time. And I'm new to the team here at Neura.

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What first brought you to medicine?

I grew up in a family where my younger sister was born very premature, and we were in and out of the neurology and neurosurgeon's office because of her condition when she was born. I remember wanting to kind of be in neurology since I was really young. I've had a draw to neurology since I was young and pursued that in undergrad.

I went to Hopkins for nursing school and then went straight into my family nurse practitioner degree at Emory, then went straight into neurology upon graduation. 

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What’s your special interest within your specific field?

I have had the privilege of being in every piece of neuro. I started out in an outpatient clinic and had an MS specialty clinic, a dizzy specialty clinic, and a headache specialty clinic, and did general neurology on the other days.

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And then I got to work on the inpatient side as a neurohospitalist with Emory University and got to see stroke and more of the acute side of neurology. And so I love all of neuro, but I feel like if I had to choose, sort of my special interest, it would be dizziness in general and then stroke patients. Those two avenues have my heart in particular.

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What’s your approach to treating patients?

I feel like any patient deserves to be looked at as a holistic person, but especially in neurology, I mean, these conditions affect every avenue of life. I think taking a more holistic approach is appropriate in all medicine. But particularly here, my general style is a little bit more holistic.

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In general, I prefer to use supplements and incorporate pharmaceutical options like therapy, physical therapy, and massage therapy, really looking at the whole person. And in addition to using medications, we have those, and we need them.

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What is your POV on patient-first care?

I think patient-first care is integral to giving good medicine. If we aren't putting our patients first, then something's going terribly wrong. But I also think that everyone has intuition and they know what they're feeling, and so it's really important to listen, to really understand what they're experiencing, what's going on with them.

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And a lot of times, having a good, thorough conversation, I feel like it clues me in as to what's going on and what treatment approaches will be most effective for that person. So I think it's really important for my personal philosophy, and I think it's important for good care.

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Do you have a chronic condition or does someone close to you have a chronic condition?

I have migraine. I've had migraine since I was 12 years old. They used to be really bad. But over time, with different tweaks in my own personal life, I manage them now with lifestyle modifications and some supplements. I think having that experience makes it easier to understand what my patients are experiencing.

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And not that what I did will work for everybody, but it does give, I think, a different layer of understanding.

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