‘I still can help’

After graduating earlier this year, Theresa Tsosie-Robledo plans to continue serving at the Indian Health Service headquarters level, leveraging her DNP to take on additional leadership roles where her expertise in public health and informatics is needed.

For Theresa Tsosie-Robledo, MS, RN-BC, retiring as a captain (O-6) from the U.S. Public Health Service wasn’t a finish line — it was a foundation for returning to school to earn a post-master’s Doctor of Nursing Practice degree.

Tsosie-Robledo, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, retired in 2019 after 37 years with Indian Health Service (IHS), 30 as a commissioned officer and seven as a civil servant. Her retirement didn’t last long, though. When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, she partnered with the New Mexico Department of Health and New Mexico Indian Affairs to assist the Nations, Tribes and Pueblos in New Mexico with their mitigation efforts.

“I really, really benefited from that experience personally and professionally,” says Tsosie-Robledo. “I realized I still had a lot to offer.”

Today, Tsosie-Robledo is a public health nurse grant coordinator and public health adviser for the Division of Nursing Services at the IHS headquarters. She oversees a five-year cooperative agreement addressing the high prevalence of sexually transmitted infections in Indian Country, a situation exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Inspired to keep learning

Her decision to earn a doctoral degree was inspired by a nurse she read about who continued to travel and teach best nursing practices globally well into her 80s. The article quoted her asking, “Why would I retire, when I know more now than I have ever known before?” Tsosie-Robledo connected to the sentiment. “I thought, well, why stop learning? Why stop, you know?” she asked.

Tsosie-Robledo was already a proud alum of the University of Minnesota, having earned her Master of Science in Nursing degree with a public health emphasis. With its national reputation in nursing informatics and its American Indian/Alaska Native Doctoral Education Pathway Program, enrolling in the University of Minnesota School of Nursing for a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree was an easy choice.

The financial support provided by the American Indian/Alaska Native Doctoral Education Pathway Program was significant for Tsosie-Robledo. The program also provided an invaluable network. “We have a text group I call the Native Gophers. They are awesome,” says Tsosie-Robledo. “We lean on each other for support and encouragement and for laughs.”

Tsosie-Robledo champions the program’s value, especially for students without her prior professional experience. “I think it’s important to students for different reasons, to have that support to lean on one another, to have mentorship to be successful and sharing their cultural identity and understanding that is important in pursuing a higher degree,” she says.

A career ladder nurse

Originally from Two Grey Hills, on the Navajo Nation, Tsosie-Robledo currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She describes herself as a “career ladder nurse” within the IHS. Her journey began with an Associate Degree in Nursing from Brigham Young University, followed by a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Arizona State University — a necessity to become a public health nurse in the IHS.

“I really, really was drawn to be a public health nurse,” she explains. This passion was sparked during her time in boarding school. Seeing two nurses provide friendly, community-based care — like vision and hair screenings — left a lasting impression. “In my mind, nursing was what they were doing,” she says, distinguishing it from a hospital or clinical setting.

Much of her career has been dedicated to public health nursing, focused on community-based care, working with populations, groups, and families, and promoting wellness.

“With public health nursing, you’re out in the communities, you’re working with groups and families, and then trying to promote the best wellness that they can reach,” she says.

Shaping the future of health informatics

Later in her career, she spent about 10 years in nursing informatics. As a nurse consultant for the Office of Information Technology and a nurse informaticist for IHS, her role was significant during the implementation of electronic health records (EHR) as mandated by the HITECH Act in 2009.

“My role was as the nurse trying to get all the sites in the United States under our federal Indian Health Service to get them on board,” she says, describing the challenges of transitioning from paper records and addressing resistance. She assessed barriers and helped sites get on board, traveling across the country to assist with the widespread implementation.

It was this direct experience with system implementation and user challenges that eventually inspired her to delve deeper into the systemic issues facing the field with her DNP Scholarly Project, Underrepresentation of Nurses in Health Information Technology Innovation: A Quality Improvement Project.

The quality improvement initiative focused on the underrepresentation of nurses in the health information technology innovation world. She interviewed informatics leaders nationwide to identify major themes, aiming to present a framework for organizations to assess their landscape for improvement.

Continuing to serve

Overall, her time earning a DNP degree at the University of Minnesota was rewarding.

“The whole experience has been really positive,” says Tsosie-Robledo.

After graduating earlier this year, Tsosie-Robledo plans to continue serving at the IHS headquarters level, leveraging her DNP to take on additional leadership roles where her expertise in public health and informatics is needed.

“I feel like I still have some things to do,” says Tsosie-Robledo. “I still can help.”