Ms. Bellinger, B.S., R.N., received a Bachelor of Science degree in the Administration of Health Services from Ithaca College in 1990. She returned to school and received her A.A.S. in Nursing from Dutchess Community College, doing so with Honors. She spent the next several years working as a staff nurse at the University of North Carolina teaching hospital in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where she worked primarily in ENT, Renal Transplant, and Vascular Surgery. During this time, she also staffed the float pool gaining experience in all surgical services and in the hospital’s regionally recognized Burn Center. In 2000, she and her family returned to New York and she began working at FF Thompson Hospital as a floor nurse in Orthopaedics and Pediatrics and then transferred to the facility’s intensive care unit where she worked until leaving to raise her family.