Election Candidates

Upper East TN Director Candidate

My name is Heather Sizemore, and I am a flight nurse and the outreach education coordinator for Highlands Emergency Air & Rescue. I have been in emergency nursing for almost my entire career. I knew at a very young age that I wanted to do emergency and transport nursing. My father was injured in a serious ATV accident and had to be flown to the regional Level 1 Trauma Center when I was 8. My mother and I had been on the lake that day and I remember thinking how incredible it was that he was able to receive emergency treatment in such a rural area and that he made it to the trauma center is 20 mins whereas it took my mother and I 90 mins to drive there. I started working as a nurse in a Med Surg ICU where I had a lot of experienced nurses take me under their wing. When I felt ready, I transferred to the emergency department of the Level 1 Trauma Center that my father was treated at. Once I transferred there, I was hooked to emergency medicine. I worked in the ER for several years and finally took the leap and applied for a flight nursing job. I have now been flying for 8 years and genuinely still get excited about work. I am also a TNCC and ENPC Course Director and absolutely love to share my clinical knowledge and experiences with the next generation of emergency nurses.

Heather Sizemore BSN, RN, CEN, CFRN, NREMT 

West TN Director Candidate

My name is Rachel Cashion Young, and I was born in Memphis, Tennessee.  I lived in the small rural town of Brighton, Tennessee until I graduated from high school.  After graduation, I attended the University of Tennessee at Martin and graduated in 1976.  At UT Martin, I was enrolled in the College of Nursing; however, “life happened” and I completed my Bachelor of Science degree in Liberal Arts – Biology.

I attended The University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Nursing in Memphis and graduated from their Accelerated Nursing Program in 1993.  After graduation, I worked in Med-Surg for a year and a half, and then worked for Semmes Murphey Clinic.  I was trained to be a neurosurgical nurse and First Assistant by two excellent physicians, Thomas Weems, MD and James Metcalf, MD.  Prior to going to the Emergency Department in 2004, I also worked as a Nurse Manager for a Neurological Clinic and as an office nurse for an Electrophysiologist at a busy Cardiovascular practice.

In 2004, as many in healthcare do, I decided to go a different route in nursing, and I became an Emergency Nurse.  The Emergency Department I went to work in was the busiest in the City of Memphis and the surrounding county of Shelby.  Once there, the course was set – Emergency Nursing was my passion.  I was a staff nurse and served on multiple committees, I was one of the busiest preceptors in the Department and am proud to say that I helped to mold many great nurses over the next 19 years.  Before my retirement in 2023, I was employed as the Outcomes Coordinator for the department.  

I am married to Robert M. (Bobby) Young, Jr. We shall celebrate our 41^st wedding anniversary in September, and we have two grown children.  Both are married and we have been blessed with three awesome grandsons, ranging in age from14 years to 16 months old.

I have lived all my life in West Tennessee and know that there is a great opportunity for us, as Emergency Nurses, to make a difference in our communities and the health and lives of the individuals who we serve.  If elected as the West Tennessee Regional Director of the Emergency Nurses Association, I will continue to help in fulfilling the mission to advance excellence in Emergency Nursing.