Speaking With Nurse Practitioner Trailblazer, Entrepreneur and National Conference Keynote Speaker Wendy L. Wright
Hear Dr. Wright’s inspiring story ahead of her presentation at the 2026 AANP National Conference.
When she speaks to hundreds of nurse practitioners (NPs) at the closing general session of the 2026 AANP National Conference, Wendy L. Wright, DNP, ANP-BC FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN, FNAP, will be returning to a lifelong source of inspiration and opportunity. “My career as an NP, my speaking career, my consulting career, my entrepreneurial career — was made at conferences like this one,” she says about this year’s national conference.
Wright is a busy speaker — she says she gives more than 200 talks a year these days — and she is full of inspiring, moving stories about her life and work. Wright took time out of her busy schedule to talk with the American Association of Nurse Practitioners®
(AANP) about her closing keynote for the 2026 AANP National Conference in Las Vegas on June 27.
A Lifelong Calling
“I have known since the time I was four years old that I was going to be a nurse,” says Wright. Many NPs, like Wright, decided on their future nursing career quite early in life, but Wright was also guided by the presence of unique and groundbreaking health care providers. “I was cared for as a child by a physician’s assistant — now we call them physician associates — and one of my providers as a young adult was an FNP. I was exposed to that role at a very young age. In fact, my NP was the one of the first NPs in America to open up an NP owned family practice.”
Wright began her own journey into health care by earning her bachelor’s degree and then working as a nurse. While she was required to work for two full years as a nurse before being able to go back to school for an advanced degree, she was determined to go back to school as soon as possible and petitioned for an exception. Her petition was granted by faculty member Margaret Fitzgerald, DNP, FNP-BC, NP-C, FAANP, CSP, FAAN, DCC, FNAP, who would later serve as a professional mentor. Wright completed her schooling and has now been an NP for 34 years.
The path to higher education, for Wright, took determination and sacrifice. She was raised by “two parents who had never graduated high school, never went to college. We lived in a trailer park growing up. We worried about food; we worried about how we were going to afford clothing.” Wright’s parents believed in her, and they believed in education, despite being able to experience so little of it themselves. “They mortgaged their trailer in order to send me to school,” Wright recalls. “And I will tell you, my biggest mentors were my parents, who knew nothing about anything that we’re talking about today, but saw something in me that said, ‘You gotta do this to escape this world and this community that we’re living in.’”
Supported on the Road to Success
While her parents were her earliest supporters, Wright was quick to find NP trailblazers who helped make her into the clinician she is today, like Fitzgerald, who “recommended me for the board of directors of a continuing education company, and that’s what kicked off my speaking career,” says Wright.
Then there’s Mimi Secor, DNP, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN, who Wright wrangled to give the keynote address at Wright’s graduation. Since then, Secor has acted as a mentor to Wright, especially with regard to entrepreneurship. Secor founded, owned and operated one of the first NP-owned women’s health practices in Massachusetts, an entrepreneurial path Wright ended up taking herself when she decided a job she held for 14 years in a family practice “was amazing, until it wasn’t. Things were happening in the clinic that I could no longer be a part of, and so I decided to give my resignation…I had no idea what the next part of my career was going to be.”
While Wright may not have had any ideas about how her career would progress after leaving the clinic, her younger sister did, and the pressure to join forces began almost immediately. “My sister was running a surgical center for a group of urologists about an hour north of where I live, and she said to me, ‘I have the best idea. I think what we should do is open up a practice together. You’ll be the NP and I’ll help you run it. I’ll help you set it up. You’ll pay for everything because you’re the older sister, and that’s how it will work. But we’ll work together for the rest of our lives.’”
Wright notes that she and her sister had once worked together with limited friction — at a restaurant, with Wright as manager and her sister as employee — but she wasn’t keen to just jump into something so new and risky. Six weeks later, however, she relented. “I went to the bank and mortgaged my home. I took out a home equity loan of $75,000…that was really big money back then. I cried [at the bank], having no idea whether this would work or not. We opened on Feb. 1, 2007, with seven patients on the books. And today, we have 31 employees. I have 6,500 primary care patients that we provide care for, and my sister is our practice manager 19 years later. I’m really proud of the work that our team does. Not only do we provide care, we try to publish the results of that care so that we can disseminate that knowledge through the health care community to show the power of NPs, and the type of care that they provide.”
Helping NPs “Protect Their Energy”
When she speaks at the 2026 AANP National Conference, one thing Wright wants to impart to her audience is: “You don’t have to do everything. You just have to do something.” Wright points out that “NPs are predominately women. They’re often moms […] I want them to take their enthusiasm, and I want them to take their energy — and while I want them to protect their energy, because energy needs to be protected, just like our license needs to be protected — at the end of the day, I want them to use their energy, their voice and what they learned at AANP and translate that back into their communities, because patients are depending on us.” She also wants NPs to experience a conference in person, if possible. “I want people to come to conferences,” she says. “You don't have to do it every year. But you know what? Come. Because you will walk away with not just knowledge, but a sense of power. My career was made by the NPs with whom I interacted at AANP.”
More Opportunities for NP Entrepreneurs at the 2026 AANP National Conference
Along with Dr. Wright, the 2026 AANP National Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 23-27, features an opening keynote by speaker Victoria Labalme. Register today to take part in specialty sessions about entrepreneurship including “NP Entrepreneurs Shaping the Future of Healthcare,” “Starting a Pediatric Mobile Health Practice” and “Start a Practice, Yes You Can!”
Register today to take advantage of early registration savings — and substantial discounts exclusive to members of AANP!