With years of practiced nursing experience under her belt, Anne C. Perry, FNP-BC, currently serves as a representative for District 140 of the Maine House of Representatives. Earlier in her career, she worked for Moses Ludington Hospital as an obstetrics nurse, and the Essex County Head Start Program as a nurse and social worker. Following these appointments, she accepted various roles in the field of medicine, including a prepared childbirth instructor, a clinical director, an office nurse and a family nurse practitioner for Essex County Clinic, Southern Adirondack Planned Parenthood, Adirondack Mountains Family Practice and Family Practice of Laurie Churchill, Maryland. More recently, Ms. Perry excelled as the president of the Maine Nurse Practitioner Association, the vice chief for Staff Calais Regional Hospital and an adjunct professor of health policy for Husson University’s nurse practitioner program.
An expert in her field, Ms. Perry has earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Maine at Portland and a Master of Science in Nursing, specializing in family practice, from Husson College. In order to remain aware of changes in the field, she is affiliated with the Maine Nurse Practitioners Association, the Calais Rotary Club and various committees with the Maine House of Representatives. Whenever she isn’t working, Ms. Perry contributes to her community through the Regional Medical Health Center, Eastern Maine Health Systems and Washington County: One Community.
Although her career has been filled with highlights, Ms. Perry is especially proud of earning the Nursing Leadership and Advocate Award from the Maine chapter of the American Nurses Association in 2019. For her outstanding work, she has been featured in multiple editions of Who’s Who in the East and Who’s Who in American Politics. Looking toward the future, Ms. Perry intends to continue utilizing her nursing expertise in her work with the Maine House of Representatives.
The attitude toward the profession of nurse practitioners has changed; when Ms. Perry went back to school to become a nurse practitioner, there was fellow nurses that no longer wanted to be talk to her because of it. There is now a greater need to have a base knowledge of nursing education and know where the find the knowledge you need. There is much more holistic look at what influenced health and working with prevention, and keeping people healthy instead of just plugging in when they are sick. Ms. Perry would like to be remembered as someone who cared. She listened to her patients and told them that they can do this, and she worked with them a piece at a time. She wants others to feel like she was just like them in many ways and no different. Her family, specifically her parents, encouraged her to be who she wanted to be and made sure she had the tools to be able to do that. They were very community oriented as well, which inspired her.
Ms. Perry’s motivation has been the people she has worked with, patients and their families. She has enjoyed touching and making a difference in the lives of others. She has always wanted to be a good inspiration and nursing was the best way to do it. What separates her from others is that she cares for her patients and sees them as friends. The best results are when you can negotiate with the patients about what they can do and then be able to grow together; the relationships have been her favorite part. Ms. Perry’s advice to others is that nursing allows you to work and go to school, which makes it affordable. Others looking to pursue the same path should work in the field while you are learning.
Ms. Perry is the proud mother of three wonderful children, Heather, Ian and Kristin, as well as a grandmother to her five grandchildren – Perry, Sydney, Rylie, Lucas and Eliot.