Kate Yeadaker often rushes home from her trauma nurse job at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, strips off her green scrubs and dons high heels and a form-fitting dress — ready to live out her alter ego — DJDharma, the Night Nurse, spinning records at local clubs.

Kate Emily Yeadaker has never fancied herself to be a superhero, though her daily routine often requires a costume change.

Nor does she have a split personality. As a veteran nurse, Yeadaker insists she’d recognize the symptoms.

But many weekdays, when 7:30 p.m. rolls around, Yeadaker rushes home from her job at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, strips off her uniform — green scrubs and a hair net — and quickly dons another.

When she emerges from her North Beach apartment in high heels and a form-fitting dress, she is no longer Kate Yeadaker, RN.

She is DJ Dharma, the Night Nurse.

At least a couple times a week you can find DJ Dharma spinning records at local night spots, laying down such a thick layer of love, peace and soul Don Cornelius would be proud. Her sets are a stew of reggae, old-school hip-hop, disco, R&B, jazz and Brazilian “funky,” which is a combination of traditional Brazilian music played over heavy dance beats.

“Music has always been my passion. I love it all,” says the 30-year-old Yeadaker. “Like a lot of people I’ve always had dreams of being a DJ. And it’s happened for me.”

She’s equally devoted to her job as a nurse at Jackson’s Ryder Trauma Center, where she tends to everything from open fractures to gunshot wounds and assists in surgeries. Which raises a fair question: How does Yeadaker reconcile her two passions?

“I think being a DJ helps me better connect with people,” she says. “And that’s something that can only help me be a better nurse.”

HIPPIE PARENTS

Yeadaker, who was born and raised in North Miami, traces her nurturing nature and musical aptitude to her parents. She says her father Earl, a native of Puerto Rico, and mother Stephanie, who is from New York by way of Estonia, were “hippies” who were passionate about both music and kindness.

“The constant theme of our household was just to be kind and be compassionate to everything and everyone,” she says.

Her parents were also musicians. “Our house was all about music, all sorts of music, but definitely a lot of jazz,” she says.

To this day, she says, Earl and Stephanie keep a virtual orchestra in their bedroom of timbale and conga drums, a guitar, a cello and a piano.

As a student at North Miami Beach High School, Yeadaker began to stretch her musical wings by performing on (and choreographing for) the dance team, playing piano, and exploring different genres. But as common as those activities were, her love of music was still deeper than most of her peers, she felt.

“Some memorized lyrics, some just thrived on the beats, but not a lot of us felt the music in our souls and got into it in a spiritual way,” Yeadaker says. “I did that.”

By the time she graduated high school in 1997, Yeadaker had decided to devote her life to nursing. “It fit how I had been raised, to do something helpful and useful.”

Musically, her passion for reggae, old-school hip-hop and music from Latin America grew deeper, and by the time she entered Florida International University’s School of Nursing she was ready to share her taste in tunes with more than her family.

It started on a small scale, with mix tapes made for friends. “She was the campus music girl,” says longtime friend Ana Wagner. “She was so sweet. She cared so much about her music.”

Within a couple years, Yeadaker had bought turntables and a mixing board and started performing — though for small, safe audiences. Wagner recalls that after group nights out, it became a ritual for friends to return to Yeadaker’s apartment to listen to her spin records.

“We’d go out to dance or to dinner, and we would go back to her place, and she would put on a show,” Wagner says. “She would try different things, and even when people would try to tell her what to do — especially guys who thought they knew more about DJing than she could. She would nicely tell them that she would figure it out. And she did.”

Yeadaker graduated magna cum laude from FIU seven years ago with a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a minor in anthropology. The stage name DJ Dharma — from the Sanskrit word that in Buddhism means the way to enlightenment — came four years ago, during a private show for friends. “The Night Nurse” was added later by friends.

Her big break came about two years ago with an invitation to spin occasionally with Kulcha Shok Krew, a well-known South Florida DJing group, and also at Jazid on South Beach. She now appears there frequently on weekends, and also appears every Tuesday night at Boteco, a Brazilian restaurant and lounge in Northeast Miami.

‘SO HUMBLE’

Nelson Fritz, a nightclub promoter and salsa instructor, remembers the first time he saw DJ Dharma at Jazid, and later at Boteco. “She was terrific because she was so humble. Maybe it was shyness, I don’t know. But her personality was a perfect fit for the happy, upbeat variety of music she plays.”

On a recent Tuesday morning, Yeadaker peeked behind a curtain at the Trauma Center and smiled at a teenage boy who lay on a gurney, grimacing. A quick glance at his bloody left leg gave a clue to the grimace, but Yeadaker suspected his face was distorted more from fear than physical pain.

MUSICAL CONNECTION

Noting his T-shirt sported an image of reggae legend Bob Marley, she decided to take his mind off the injury by talking about music. Soon she was beat-boxing — making percussive chirps and sounds with her mouth — while the boy tapped his hands on the bed’s railings.

Tch, tch pff. Tch, tch, tch pff, thump, thump.

“His injury was more a surface injury,” she said later. “He required stitches and a brace. But this was not a matter of him needing amputation or anything like that. He was scared. But then I saw his T-shirt, and decided to tell him my story and see if we could put him at ease.”

That evening at Boteco, DJ Dharma the Night Nurse started off light with tunes by Bob Marley and Buju Banton, and soon heated up with songs by the likes of Brazilian artists Seu Jorge and Atoladinha. Within 10 minutes, the small dance floor was jammed with bodies. Some partyers waved their hands as if it were a Southern church revival meeting.

At one point, Fritz pulled DJ Dharma to the dance floor, and the pair put on a salsa clinic for onlookers.

And every set, every set, must end with Juicy, the late Notorious B.I.G.’s first hit single about achieving the American Dream.

“You know why they call her the ‘Night Nurse?”‘ asked a man named Gregg, aka DJ Self Born. “She picks music that soothes, that matches our moods.”

The night ended around 2 a.m.

Some might wonder if a late-night DJ can also be an effective nurse, but Yeadaker says the DJ-ing helps keep her mentally sharp and in shape. “I’m high-energy,” she says.

Dr. Elvire Jacques, an OB/GYN at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Holtz Children’s Hospital who has worked with Yeadaker, says DJ Dharma’s day game has never been in question.

“No one takes her job more seriously,” Jacques says. “But at the same time, few people are able to bond with the patients like her, because she has that music in her heart, you know? She uses it to relate to them. And it works.”