Stephanie Graefe, CPNP-AC

Emergency Medicine

Graduate school: University of Virginia

Stephanie Graefe is a pediatric acute care nurse practitioner in CHKD's emergency department, a position she gained after working as a nurse for seven years in the same department. 

Stephanie grew up in a military family, and spent most of her childhood in Norfolk. She graduated from Granby High School, and then went to the University of Virginia, where she did research on families of children living with end-stage renal disease. 

She joined CHKD's emergency department when it first became a pediatric trauma center, which cares for the most severely injured children. She always wanted to become a pediatric acute care nurse practitioner, so she returned to the University of Virginia, tailoring her clinical rotations to reflect her passions in pediatric critical care and cardiology. Her clinical training also included palliative care, pediatric surgery, trauma, and hospitalist medicine.

Stephanie also has an interest in global medicine. Every year, Stephanie travels to the villages surrounding Zomba, Malawi, where she works alongside local clinicians and nurses to increase access to healthcare by expanding care at established clinics and satellite locations. 

Through the Villages in Partnership (VIP), Stephanie found a second family on the other side of the globe.

In her spare time, Stephanie enjoys riding her bicycle, watching the sunset with her German Shepherd, Fritz, working in the garden, crafting, or planning her next scuba diving or snowboarding expedition.

Stephanie will be starting her advanced practice career in the place she knows best, the emergency department at CHKD, with the very healthcare team that mentored her to where she is today. 

• Critical care and resuscitation 
• Palliative and hospice
• Congenital heart defects, primarily their acute management
• Advancing the role of the APP

• National Association of Pediatric Nurse Associates & Practitioners
• Emergency Nursing Association