Ariel Lee
Nurse Practitioner & Entrepreneur
Ariel Lee discovered her love for healthcare by caring for her grandmother who suffered from hypertension and diabetes and led to repeated hospital and doctor visits. With each visit came an even greater financial burden, stemming from extensive medical bills for care and treatment. Through this challenge, Ariel attests God’s strength empowered her to assist her grandmother with organizing her medications, preparing healthy meals, and accompanying her to doctor’s visits. This later led to her decision to select nursing as a profession to further develop her compassion and heart for improving the health of individuals.
Ariel received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing from South Dakota State University in 2008. She began her professional career at Methodist Hospital of Houston’s Medical Center, where she worked in the medical surgical department. She received her Master of Science in Nursing- Family Nurse Practitioner degree and graduated summa cum laude from Prairie View A&M University in 2014. There, she served as a leader to her peers and faculty and was elected class Chaplain. She was also inducted into Sigma Theta Tau Honor Society of Nursing. In 2015 she was appointed as a faculty staff member and primary care provider at Baylor College of Medicine and worked in Houston’s under-served community clinic until 2019.
In wanting to extend the reach of her care and reach her fullest potential outside of corporate healthcare, Ariel founded Optimize Health in 2017. Her mission is to promote health and wellness in the community through a holistic approach encompassing mental, physical, and spiritual wholeness. Optimize Health provides mobile and telehealth care services that include school sports physicals for athletes, physical examinations and labs for employees, healthcare consulting and medication/safety training for business staff and elderly clients in the community. Optimize Health is certified by the City of Houston-Women Business Enterprise, Minority Business Enterprise, Texas Historically Underutilized Business, and Hire Houston First. Ariel was privileged to be a Finalist for the Greater Houston Black Chamber Pinnacle Upstart Award 2020.
Ariel is also the author of three eBooks, on Diabetes, Hypertension, Congestive Heart Failure. She is an active member of Windsor Village United Methodist Church for over a decade, where she serves as a volunteer with the youth ministry. Her greatest accomplishment is being a devoted Christian, wife of over 15 years, and mother of 2 beautiful fun-loving children. Ariel’s primary joy and purpose in life is to serve others through her gift of compassion, faith, and encouragement.
View Ariel’s Nurses you Should Know Video here.
Read Ariel’s profile in Voyage Houston here.
Sources
The information above was sourced from Ariel Lee and LinkedIn.
Learn More
To learn more about inclusion in nursing and be part of the national discussion to address racism in nursing, check out and share the following resources:
Know Your History
- Nursing CLIO to engage with historians and scholars committed to deep work around historical accuracy in healthcare and nursing.
- American Association for the History of Nursing to attend monthly webinars on topics of nursing history, view the calendar here.
Examine Bias
- NurseManifest to attend live zoom sessions with fellow nurses on nursing’s overdue reckoning on racism or to sign their pledge.
- Breaking Bias in Healthcare, an online course created by scientist Anu Gupta, to learn how bias is related to our brain’s neurobiology and can be mitigated with mindfulness.
- Revolutionary Love Learning Hub provides free tools for learners and educators to use love as fuel towards ourselves, our opponents, and to others so that we can embody a world where we see no strangers.
Support & Advocate
- National Coalition for Ethnic Minority Nurse Association to stay engaged with topics relevant to nurses of color.
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