Marina Fischer, an assistant teaching professor in the College of Nursing, owns Intentional Living in downtown St. Louis. Fischer earned her BSN at UMSL in 2009 before returning for her DNP in 2022. (Photo courtesy of Marina Fischer)

Marina Fischer has spent over a decade working as a nurse practitioner in some of the premier health care systems in St. Louis, including SSM Health and Mercy Hospital St. Louis. For years, patients would often ask if she was interested in opening up her own practice, but – well aware of the amount of work involved – she’d always say no.

One of Fischer’s own friends, Jeanetta Stomer, even broached the idea of helping Fischer open a practice, but Fischer respectfully declined. An NP herself, Stomer took the idea one step further, offering Fischer the opportunity to sublet a space in a building where she planned to operate an NP-driven clinic. She also offered to help her get credentialed with insurance companies and establish accounts with LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics.

“She told me, ‘I have everything already set up, all you have to do is show up,’” Fischer said. “‘I have a building, I have a space, I have supplies, I have everything you need.’ It was really God-given because I didn’t have to have much come out of my pocket just to get started – it just happened.”

With such an enticing offer on the table, Fischer, who earned her BSN from the College of Nursing at the University of Missouri–St. Louis in 2009 and her MSN from Saint Louis University in 2013, was finally persuaded. In October 2020, she created an LLC and began seeing patients at her new family practice, Intentional Living, in St. Charles. Under the supervision of a physician, Fischer helps patients with acute and chronic management of diabetes, anxiety, depression, cholesterol, heart disease and other conditions. Her practice prides itself in offering accessible, affordable health care, including sliding scale payments and flexible hours outside of the traditional 9-to-5.

“I always wanted to provide access or improve access to health care services for everyone,” she said. “That’s how I came up with the name Intentional Living. We all have a purpose of living. And there’s a purpose the business was created for, even though I did not want to do it initially. Entrepreneurship is not easy, but there’s a reason behind it – seeing patients get better.”

Intentional Living quickly outgrew its original home, relocating to a larger space in downtown St. Louis about two and a half years ago. The new space features much more room to see patients, including five rooms along with a lounge area. Fischer, who grew up in East St. Louis, says the downtown location is also more accessible to patients who work downtown or live just across the river in Illinois. As she looked to grow the practice, Fischer decided to go back to school to earn her Doctor of Nursing Practice.

“I just wanted to make sure my i’s were dotted and t’s were crossed,” she said. “Being a Black female in Missouri where we still have collaborative practice agreements, I wanted to make sure I had the terminal degree in nursing practice, especially since I’m an entrepreneur with a clinical practice.”

Returning to UMSL to enroll in the Doctor of Nursing Practice program was an easy decision for Fischer. She first came to UMSL as a transfer student from Xavier University in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 and quickly found her place in the College of Nursing, graduating with her BSN in 2009. While she was completing her DNP, she signed up to teach a few fundamentals and assessment labs and clinicals in the undergraduate program as an adjunct faculty member and quickly found she enjoyed teaching. Just after earning her DNP, she wound up accepting a position as a full-time assistant professor in August 2022.

“After I got my DNP, I felt it would be the best of both worlds to teach and practice at the same time,” she said.

In addition to labs and clinicals, Fischer teaches courses in both undergraduate and graduate programs in the College of Nursing, including Health Promotion, Informatics, Advanced Pharmacology and Advanced Health Assessment. She hopes that Intentional Living can serve as a resource for clinical practice for students, who often come into the clinic to get experience working with patients, taking vital signs and establishing nursing care plans. On the flip side, she feels that her experience as a professor has also strengthened her abilities in clinical practice.

“Not only am I able to teach about it, but it forces me to continue with my personal education and be up-to-date on education,” she said. “Health care services constantly evolve, so being a professor – especially at the place where I got my terminal degree – actually has helped me quite a bit in encouraging me to continue my personal educational growth.”

As a proud two-time UMSL alum, she hopes that her work at Intentional Living can serve as a tangible example to students of what they can achieve outside the classroom.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” she said. “You can do it. If I can do it, I know anybody can. You will have to work hard, but it’s very attainable – it’s not just a dream.”