'Patients' is a virtue

Standing up for what she believes in is exactly what this mother of four has done, putting everything on the line in order to provide the community she served with the quality of care she says everyone deserves.

Judy McKee grew up in Lisle, as the second of six children. She graduated from Whitney Point High School with a scholarship in hand to follow her dreams of becoming a nurse.

Judy graduated from the school of nursing at Albany Medical with her Registered Nursing degree and decided to start her family soon thereafter. After some time at home, Judy made the decision to go back to school to become a family nurse practitioner. She attended Community Memorial’s Family Nurse Practitioner Program in Syracuse, and in just a year, she earned her title as FNP.

In 1990, just a year after completing her education, Judy took the initiative to open a school-based health clinic at Oxford Academy. She says the concept was fairly new, but it was a great way to get kids the health care they deserved.

Judy’s next adventure began six years later when Chenango Memorial Hospital opened a clinic in South Otselic. For three years, Judy worked with Chenango Memorial and acted as the main provider in the South Otselic area.

In 1999, the hospital made the decision to pull the clinic out of South Otselic.

Judy explains she couldn’t let the clinic close. The nearest hospital is 40 minutes away in any direction, and she believed the community needed better care than that.

Judy remained determined to keep the facility open; she invested the family’s retirement money, took another mortgage on the house and decided to set up shop and become her own boss. The clinic was transformed into her own practice with all the rural flair and easy atmosphere she says she wanted to offer her patients. Otselic Valley Family Health NP.PC became the first clinic in New York State to be solely operated by a nurse practitioner. Some of the hardships, Judy says, of taking over the business herself were that the time she had at home with her own children was limited, and the insurance companies would take an additional 20 percent of her reimbursements.