May 20, 2026 — For Michelle Van Leer, R.N., M.S.N., healthcare wasn’t just a career pathway. It was the family business.

Long before becoming part of the University of Florida Department of Urology family, Van Leer grew up in the Panama Canal Zone surrounded by military medicine and humanitarian outreach.

Her father served as a U.S. Special Forces medic in the Vietnam War and later became one of the U.S. military’s first physician assistants. Her mother was a Red Cross nursing volunteer, helping to fill critical shortages in clinics and schools in Panama.

Van Leer, a double Gator who followed her parents into healthcare, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing at UF, has spent more than three decades at UF Health. In 2008 she joined the College of Medicine Department of Urology, where she serves as the vice chair of administrative affairs and director of patient quality and safety.

Van Leer’s early passion was pediatric nursing, and she moved to Jacksonville immediately after earning her nursing degree to take a job at Wolfson Children’s Hospital. She would later work as a pediatric charge nurse at Flagler Hospital in St. Augustine, now UF Health Flagler Hospital.

It was during this time that Van Leer began to develop a passion and talent for quality and patient safety, a focus that would shape the rest of her career.

Even as a young nurse, Van Leer paid close attention to how hospitals functioned and how processes affected patients.

“I felt very strongly about children having access to the same level of inpatient care as adults,” she said, reflecting on the importance of specialized, coordinated care.

During her time as a pediatric nurse in ambulatory clinics, Van Leer would find herself consistently positioned to drive improvements in patient quality. She helped create a nurse practice council with other registered nurses to ensure consistency and quality of care for her patients.

“As a nurse, your job is to not only prepare a high level of care for the patient, but to protect your patient,” she said. “I felt very strongly about regulating how we deliver care in ambulatory clinics and outpatient settings.”

The Department of Urology has grown significantly during Van Leer’s tenure, expanding clinical services, research programs and educational opportunities while continuing to emphasize patient-centered care.

“Transitioning to administration gave me a voice in the decision-making process,” she said. “How many nurses do we need? What level of nursing staff are appropriate to deliver care? It gave me a bigger voice to advocate for clinical and nursing care in the outpatient setting.”

Her advice to undergraduate students who are considering their career pathways is backed by her own experiences.

“Don’t overlook the level of nursing care that’s needed in ambulatory clinics,” she said. “There’s a whole other world associated with nursing care, and it exists in doctors’ offices. It’s a great way to meet and serve your community, especially in primary and pediatric care.”

Her nursing background has continued to serve her well, giving her a practical perspective in her role as the department’s vice chair of administration. That perspective traces back to her childhood in Panama, where she watched her father travel into remote areas to provide medical care to those in need.

“He did a lot of humanitarian missions,” she said. “He’d take us along with him; we’d get on a boat, go miles down the coast and he’d set up a clinic for anybody who needed care. I was always really involved in healthcare from a very young age.”

Decades later, those memories still resonate and the threads connecting them to her professional career are clear: Patient care comes first.

And the family ‘business’ of healthcare? It’s still going strong. Van Leer’s son currently works as a nurse in the surgical intensive care unit at UF Health Shands Hospital.

“I’m so proud of the nurse that he’s become,” she said. “He takes care of some of the most complex, complicated patients and that’s amazing to me.”