Bio

Dr. Lauryn A. Richard, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing from Louisiana State University Health New Orleans in May 2023. She holds active licensure as a Registered Nurse and Advanced Practice Registered Nurse in Louisiana, is board certified as a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner through the American Nurses Credentialing Center, and maintains DEA and Louisiana Board of Pharmacy controlled substance registrations. She was inducted into Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing in May 2023.

Dr. Richard brings seven years of progressive clinical psychiatric experience across inpatient, emergency, and outpatient care settings. From June 2018 to February 2024, she practiced as an Inpatient Psychiatric Registered Nurse at Manning Family Children’s Hospital, where she served as charge nurse for a 53-bed unit. In this role, she precepted and educated new nursing staff, developed unit-based educational materials, and collaborated with interdisciplinary teams to support patient care delivery and unit operations.

From February 2024 to March 2025, Dr. Richard served as an Emergency Department Psychiatric Consultant at Manning Family Children’s Hospital, providing comprehensive psychiatric evaluations for pediatric and adult emergency department patients. Her responsibilities included autonomous initiation of psychopharmacologic treatment, crisis intervention, and consultation support for emergency department clinicians. She also developed and delivered restraint training programs for hospital security personnel and contributed to inpatient unit quality improvement initiatives and policy development.

Dr. Richard is currently the founder and owner of Second Line Psychiatry, a private outpatient telehealth practice providing psychiatric evaluation, medication management, and therapeutic services. In this role, she manages clinical care delivery as well as practice operations, with a focus on expanding access to high-quality mental health services through telehealth. She has demonstrated sustained leadership and professional service, including service on the Board of the Louisiana Association of Student Nurses (LASN) as Membership Recruiter (2016–2017) and Vice President (2017–2018). Her responsibilities included coordinating statewide conferences, organizing fundraising initiatives, and representing Louisiana nursing students at national conventions.

Dr. Richard maintains active membership in the Louisiana State Nurses Association, the American Nurses Association, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. Her scholarly and professional interests include psychiatric assessment, crisis intervention, trauma-informed care, clinical education, and behavioral health workforce development. Her doctoral project examined screening practices for co-occurring mental illness among individuals admitted to substance use rehabilitation facilities and was presented at LCMC Research Day.