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Jessica Peddle — Leading with Purpose and Clarity
November 10, 2025
As a Nurse Practitioner (NP), Jessica Peddle provides primary care at a Family Care Team in St. John’s, where she manages a roster of about 800 patients. Her clinic days are fully booked and span a wide range of needs—from newborn and postpartum care to chronic disease management, women’s health, mental health, and palliative support.
“I’m completely booked every day and well in advance, to be honest,” she said. “We see a minimum of 12 patients, but of course if you have an urgent result that comes in, or if there’s a phone call from a patient or something urgent, you’ll often see more than 12 a day.”
Peddle has practised as an NP for nearly a decade. Her interest in advanced practice took shape early in her nursing career: during her BN training she set a goal to work her RN hours and then apply to an NP program. She completed her NP education through Athabasca University and has since centred her practice on prevention, education, and a holistic approach to care.
In appointments—especially when someone is going through a difficult time—she deliberately steps away from the keyboard, turns fully toward the patient, and prioritizes connection and clarity first. The documentation comes after.
“At the end of the day, it’s that patient interaction and that personal interaction—being able to create that connection so they feel like you did hear them. You did listen to their concerns, and you want to help.”
She is confident and transparent in acknowledging when she doesn’t have an immediate answer to a patient’s question—and she follows up once she has reviewed the evidence or consulted as needed.
Despite growing awareness of the NP role, Peddle still encounters new patients who expect an eventual hand-off to a physician. She uses those moments to reinforce a simple message: in primary care, “provider” can mean a physician or a nurse practitioner, and NPs in this province practise with a broad scope.
“I also feel that once people have the chance to sit down face-to-face with a Nurse Practitioner and really understand what we can do and provide—that we don’t have those limitations they might assume—that’s when the magic happens. That’s when people realize I can have a Nurse Practitioner as my primary health-care provider… and I’m delighted by that.”
Her goal is that patients experience the value of NP-led care first-hand through timely access, comprehensive assessments, and coordinated plans.
Beyond her clinical work, Peddle serves as President of the Newfoundland and Labrador Nurse Practitioner Association (NLNPA). She first joined the executive as secretary at the urging of the president, later stepped into the vice-president role, and ultimately accepted the presidency after seeing how much progress was possible with a focused, collaborative team. The association’s current priorities include establishing clear, consistent reporting structures for Nurse Practitioners within NL Health Services, ensuring that NPs are consistently recognized as autonomous primary-care providers, and implementing a sustainable provincial funding model for NP-led primary care. With these pieces in place, NPs can focus their time and expertise on delivering high-quality patient care—instead of continuously re-explaining their role or navigating unclear operational expectations.
Peddle sees growth and learning as essential to good practice. She views expert care as inseparable from lifelong learning: no matter how experienced the provider, there is always more to learn, and humility keeps care safe and current.
For nurses considering the NP path, her counsel is pragmatic: the role is demanding, and public expectations can be challenging, but for those who truly want it, the work is varied, rewarding, and never boring.