Meet the Team: Lauren Stoff, NP-C
Nurse Practitioner Lauren Stoff took a non-traditional route to Anderson Sports Medicine. Her passion for the medical world started during business school at Michigan State University, when she drove an hour and a half back home to Rochester Hills on weekends to work 12-hour shifts as a nursing assistant. Lauren enjoyed it so much that after graduation, she entered an accelerated nursing program at University of Detroit Mercy. “I thought that I was meant to do something in that capacity, so I went for it,” she recalls.
Lauren went on to work for seven years as a registered nurse in a variety of settings including emergency, endoscopy and outpatient orthopedic surgery. She was the charge nurse in both PACU (recovery) and pre-op. She eventually earned a Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Michigan-Flint. Lauren’s responsibilities now include assessing and diagnosing new patients, doing surgery follow-ups and performing all shoulder, and elbow and knee injections. Some injections are done under ultrasound. This past year, she attended a MSK ultrasound course in NYC at Hospital for Special Surgery to further focus on the importance of ultrasound-guided injections. Lauren also does x-ray interpretations and reviews MRI findings with patients after consulting with Dr. Anderson, who taught her how to review MRI findings.
An avid golfer who loves to plays tennis twice per week and also enjoys yoga, she feels for each and every patient who comes into the office knowing they might be off their game for a while. “When we find a sport that we’re passionate about and we get injured, it’s pretty devastating to think, ‘Do I have to give this up for a while so I can heal?’” she says. But Lauren knows that patience is often the key to a successful recovery, another important lesson Dr. Anderson taught her. “He taught me that sometimes we just need to give the body time, and there’s certainly not always a surgical fix,” Lauren says.
Patients will find Lauren in the office Monday through Friday, which gives them access to a provider even while Dr. Anderson is away. Though she didn’t always know she wanted to be a nurse practitioner, she says she’s so glad her journey led to where she is today. “The path isn’t always linear, but I certainly feel like I landed right where I need to be,” Lauren says. “I couldn’t be happier.
