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RANDOLPH, Aug. 31, 2007 – Certified Nurse Midwives Amie Kennedy and Amanda Breed have joined Gifford Medical Center Ob/Gyn and Midwifery.
Kennedy comes to Gifford with a remarkable 27 years experience as a nurse and nurse midwife. Breed has up-to-date training from the top-ranked University of Washington School of Nursing as well as five years experience as a birthing center nurse.
They join certified nurse midwives Kipp Bovey and Tanya Waters on Gifford’s midwifery team with offices in Randolph and Montpelier.
“Gifford is the gold standard for midwives,” Kennedy says of why she joined the practice. “I’m really happy to be here.”
A native of Brandon, Kennedy was a nurse for 10 years before attending midwifery school in 1990 at Georgetown University Graduate School of Nursing in Washington, D.C.
“Even in nursing school, when we did our obstetrics rotation, out of anything I’d done in nursing, I felt much more tuned into helping laboring women,” Kennedy says.
She continued working as a birthing center nurse until graduation from Georgetown in 1992 and in the 15 years has since worked as a midwife at Garrison Medical Professional Association in Dover, N.H., Lewistown Hospital Maternity Center and Ob/Gyn Associates of Lewisburg in Pennsylvania, and most recently at large Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa.
Kennedy was also a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, working at Malcolm Grow Medical Center on Andrews Air Force Base in Camp Springs, Md., and 347th Tactical Fighter Wing Hospital on Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Ga.
She returns to Vermont for the opportunity to work at Gifford and to be near friends and family.
“I just love Vermont. I feel like this is home,” says Kennedy, who now lives in Randolph.
Breed attended nursing school at the University of Vermont and worked at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington and Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass., as a maternity and labor and delivery nurse before pursuing her master’s degree at the University of Washington in Seattle beginning in 2005.
“I always knew I wanted to be an advanced practice nurse. I just didn’t know what kind,” Breed says. “When I was involved in my first birth, I knew I found my calling.”
Even at graduate school on the opposite side of the country, Breed says she heard positive comments about Gifford.
“Gifford not only supports the midwife philosophy, but it embodies it,” Breed says. “I’m so happy to be here. I feel extremely fortunate to be part of midwifery here at Gifford.”
Both Breed and Kennedy are board certified and members of the American College of Nurse Midwives. Kennedy has a special clinical interest in maternity care, teen pregnancy prevention and education, and treatment options for perimenopausal women.
She is a mother of a now grown daughter and enjoys horseback and motorcycle riding, flower gardening, nature walks and aerobics in her free time.
Breed’s clinical interests include promoting healthy lifestyles and preventive medicine.
Breed and her partner, Mark Kolonoski, are buying a home in Montpelier and expecting their first child in September. Breed enjoys long distance running, hiking, skiing and the outdoors.
Meet Kennedy and Breed along with the ob/gyn and midwifery group on Sept. 20 from 5-7 p.m. at Gifford as they join the hospital’s dedicated Birthing Center nurses in celebrating Gifford’s 30th year of providing low-intervention births to Vermont women.
Call Gifford Ob/Gyn and Midwifery at (802) 728-2401.