Jennifer Dreps joins Oaklawn Occupational Medicine
Jennifer Dreps, FNP-C, COHN, COHC, CPEN, recently joined Oaklawn Occupational Medicine located at 215 East Mansion Street, Suite 2A, in Marshall. The office can be reached by calling 269-789-3866.
Dreps brings to Oaklawn eight years of experience collaborating with other healthcare professionals to plan, manage and assess patient treatments for occupational injury or employment. She will also be performing surveillance and qualification exams in the workplace to ensure safety.
“Occupational medicine is an area that specializes in health and welfare of Oaklawn employees and contracted companies.” said Dreps. “It focuses on injuries and surveillance of health. We do pre-employment examinations, DOT physicals, drug screens, baseline hearing testing, immunizations, and treat on-the-job injuries.”
Dreps stressed that her office is not an urgent care clinic, but rather treats such things as work-related lacerations, back injury, repetitive injury or chemical exposures.
Prior to joining Oaklawn, Dreps worked at General Motors, providing emergency care, first aid and episodic treatment of occupational injuries and illnesses.
She states that her aim is to work toward the prevention of illness and injury, protection from work-related and environmental hazards and promotion and restoration of health.
Dreps earned her Master of Science as a Family Nurse Practitioner from the University of Michigan, her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and her Associate of Applied Science from Davenport University.
Dreps came to Oaklawn after doing her clinical rotation for her master’s degree in one of their family medicine clinics.
“I just really liked the culture, and the clinical preceptor kept saying, ‘You should come work for Oaklawn,’” Dreps stated. “I already had worked for General Motors prior to that doing occupational medicine as a nurse, and that’s where I really started loving occupational medicine, and I got certified as an occupational health nurse.”
After hearing that Oaklawn was opening an Occupational Health department, she was immediately interested in the opportunity as an advanced practice nurse.
Dreps noted that she was drawn to occupational medicine because she wanted to help employers and their workers and to collaborate with them on making sure employees stay safe and healthy.
“Somebody once told me I have a heart for service,” said Dreps, who joined the Air Force after graduating from high school. “I like helping people and I like fixing problems.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs helped Dreps earn her associate’s degree in medical assistant and later her Bachelor of Science in nursing.
“I worked in the emergency department for a few years and then decided to go further and got my master’s to become a nurse practitioner,” she said, noting that she enjoys working with companies to improve work conditions through ergonomics training, assessment of workstations and healthy lifestyles. “Unfortunately, musculoskeletal or repetitive injuries can still occur working in manufacturing or healthcare. So, we try to work with body mechanics in all these different types of environments. The companies that we are contracted with cross the entire spectrum. We see employees from healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, and food service. Just being able to figure out the different challenges that these employees face helps determine the best way to keep them from becoming injured and is what makes the job so satisfying.”
Dreps is from Olivet and in her spare time she said she enjoys spending time with her family, reading, and doing crafts.
She noted that her first weeks at Oaklawn have been a “great experience.”
“The culture is fantastic,” said Dreps. “Everybody seems to like everybody, from the top down. Everybody’s always extremely kind and helpful.”
