Faculty Spotlight: Ledi Loot, PMHNP-BC, MA Nursing, MSHCM, MBA, RNC-OB
By Ledi Loot (edited interview by staff)
For Ledi Loot, nursing has always been closely connected to family, service, education, and care for people during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.
Born and raised in the Philippines, Loot grew up in a family that gave her an early introduction to healthcare. Her father is a retired mariner who later became a businessman, and her mother is a retired midwife. As the eldest of four children, Loot learned responsibility and independence early, while her mother’s work had a particularly strong influence on her future career choice.
Her family operated a small maternity clinic, where Loot was exposed to pregnancy, childbirth, and the care of mothers from a young age. She often helped her mother at the clinic and, in many ways, began assisting with the care of mothers and babies even before formally entering nursing school.
“Those early experiences stayed with me and eventually became an important part of my professional identity,” she said.
Today, Loot serves as an Adjunct Faculty member in the School of Nursing at American University of Health Sciences (AUHS). She is a board-certified Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and holds graduate degrees in nursing, healthcare management, and business administration. In addition to teaching, she works as a Labor and Delivery Charge Nurse for a large healthcare organization and mentors psychiatric nurse practitioner graduates preparing for their national board examinations.
Loot credits her upbringing with shaping the values that continue to guide her work. Watching her father spend years working as a seafarer taught her sacrifice, perseverance, and commitment to family, while from her mother, she learned compassion and service.
She also developed a strong belief in education—not simply as a way to earn degrees or professional credentials, but as a means of creating opportunities and increasing one’s ability to serve others.
“Whether I am working at the bedside, teaching nursing students, mentoring future psychiatric nurse practitioners, or developing my work in maternal mental health, I always try to remember that healthcare is ultimately about people trusting us during vulnerable moments of their lives,” Loot said. “That is a responsibility I take very seriously.”
Loot joined AUHS after being invited to teach by a faculty member. With experience in both clinical nursing and nursing education, she saw the opportunity as a natural extension of something she had long enjoyed: helping students connect classroom learning with the realities of clinical practice.
Her motivation to teach grew in part from what she observed in the hospital. She frequently encountered nursing students and new nurses who were eager to learn but still developing confidence, critical thinking, communication skills, and the ability to apply classroom knowledge to complex patient situations.
“I began to feel a responsibility to contribute to that process rather than simply observe the gaps,” she said.
For Loot, nursing education reaches far beyond preparing students to pass examinations.
“It is about teaching them how to think, communicate, advocate, recognize when something is wrong, and remember the human being behind the diagnosis,” she said.
She believes that influence can multiply over time. Helping even a small group of future nurses become more compassionate, competent, curious, and confident clinicians can ultimately affect hundreds or thousands of patients throughout their careers. Loot’s professional interests increasingly bring together two areas that have shaped her career: maternal health and mental health. Her years in Labor and Delivery have allowed her to care for women during pregnancy, childbirth, pregnancy loss, emergencies, and the immediate postpartum period. Becoming a Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner gave her another perspective on the emotional and psychiatric needs that may accompany pregnancy and motherhood.
One of her major long-term goals is to help improve access to maternal and perinatal mental healthcare. She hopes eventually to develop a collaborative maternal mental health organization offering comprehensive support throughout pregnancy and postpartum.
Her vision is multidisciplinary, bringing together perinatal psychiatric providers, lactation consultants, postpartum doulas, therapists, nurses, and other professionals involved in maternal care.
“We sometimes separate a mother’s physical health, mental health, feeding experience, recovery, and social support when in reality they are interconnected,” she said. “My hope is to help create a model where women do not have to navigate all of those needs alone.”
Her research interests include perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, postpartum depression and anxiety, maternal mental health screening, access to psychiatric services during pregnancy and postpartum, mental health following pregnancy loss or traumatic birth experiences, and reducing gaps between obstetric and psychiatric care.
Despite a demanding professional schedule, Loot has also become increasingly intentional about protecting time for her own well-being. She enjoys gardening, traveling, journaling, resting, and simply having quiet time away from work.
“Working in healthcare constantly reminds us to care for others, but I think healthcare professionals also have to learn how to care for themselves,” she said.
This month’s spotlight shines on a dedicated faculty member who is dedicated to maternal health and training nurses to care for them better.
