Dr. Holly Martin, a doctor of nursing practice and family nurse practitioner, recently retired from a 22-year career with the Department of Veterans Affairs.Daily Nurse salutes her accomplishments as a changemaker, advocacy for equitable compensation for nurses, and devotion to serving Veterans by naming Dr. Martin our Nurse of the Week.
Dr. Martin’s journey as a healthcare professional took several turns before she found a home at VA.
“I had dropped out of high school and was floating around the university and not really doing much with my life, and I eventually applied for nursing school at age 26,” she says. “I ended up graduating at the top of my class all through the bachelor’s and master’s degrees and getting a doctorate in nursing.”
Dr. Martin stumbled upon VA through a nursing convention in the fall of 2000, where she met enthusiastic VA nurses eager to find peers skilled with computer charting. She began working with VA and realized she had a strong connection to the organization and to the people she served.
Nurse of the Week Dr. Holly Martin
Family in Every American War
“It didn’t dawn on me how much VA meant to me until I’d been here a while because my whole family was in the military,” she says. “My father was killed in Vietnam, my grandfather was in the Army Air Forces, and we’ve had a soldier fight in every American war since coming to this continent.”
As both a nurse practitioner and an educator, Dr. Martin sought opportunities to foster growth in the workforce and the services VA provided. She wrote a grant to open a telemedicine clinic in Elko, Nevada. After winning the grant, she went on to teach students who would become future VA leaders while at the same time developing telemedicine as a tool to deliver primary care.
She earned her doctoral degree as a member of the first cohort to graduate from the University of Utah’s Doctor of Nursing program. She then promoted further growth for VA telehealth care by working with Clinical Resource Hubs as a telehealth provider.
Challenged Standards for Nurse Practitioner Pay
“People didn’t understand nurse practitioners very well, and that understanding has grown significantly over the years,” she adds. Dr. Martin challenged standards for locality pay and helped to demonstrate the value of nurse practitioners and their licensures as independent practitioners to increase compensation to more equitable standards.
As she ended her career with VA after 22 incredible years, Dr. Martin says she gained many opportunities by simply saying “Yes.”
“Any time somebody asked me to do something, I said ‘Yes.’ Any time I can help other nurses get more time or more space for more students, I do it. It’s only a minute in your life to be nice and help other people out. If you can help another nurse, you should get your feet wet and help them out!” she says.
Nominate a Nurse of the Week! Every Wednesday, DailyNurse.com features a nurse making a difference in the lives of their patients, students, and colleagues. We encourage you to nominate a nurse who has impacted your life as the next Nurse of the Week, and we’ll feature them online and in our weekly newsletter.
With all that nurses do for our patients, it is only fitting that we do just as much for them, supporting nurses as they grow in their VA career.
Whether at the bedside of a Veteran or working in an outpatient clinic, our nurses deliver quality care and lead the way in innovating how we provide nursing care. Nurses also develop patient safety initiatives, conduct research to improve care delivery, and help guide the next generation of nurses.
Academic partnerships
VA and schools of nursing around the country offer academic affiliations. These collaborative efforts between VA facilities and the country’s finest nursing schools provide students with clinical experiences that specifically address the unique needs of Veteran population and prepare them to excel in careers at VA.
These partnerships offer nursing students a comprehensive and intensive four-year clinical training. The programs create a stronger, mutually beneficial relationship between nursing schools and VA facilities by giving students the opportunity to engage with faculty and ultimately provide better patient care as they put classroom concepts into practice.
By the end of the program, graduates are fully accustomed to the culture and mission at VA and ready to care for our Veterans.
Transition to practice
For over a decade, VA has promoted Registered Nurse Transition-to-Practice (RNTTP) residency programs to provide a transition from school to the more complex clinical environment for RNs with less than one year of experience.
The comprehensive 12-month curriculum explores the clinical, leadership and professional dimensions of nursing at VA. Post-graduate RNs perform the typical roles, duties, patient care activities and procedures that are carried out by nurses on our team.
Availability varies by location, so contact the nurse educator or nurse recruiter at a facility near you for more information.
Financial aid
VA offers eligible employees and students nursing scholarships to advance their education and skills training through the following programs:
The National Nursing Education Initiative (NNEI), a component of the Employee Incentive Scholarship Program, funds the pursuit of bachelor’s and advanced degrees for VA RNs.
The VA National Education for Employees Program (VANEEP) is offered to employees in a clinical program pursuing first-time licensure in a clinical occupation. Participants can earn their degree faster by attending school full time, with VA covering not only some education costs but also replacement salary while they are enrolled.
The VA Learning Opportunities Residency (VALOR) program provides an opportunity for outstanding college nursing students to develop clinical competencies at an approved VA Medical Center. VALOR is designed to increase participants’ clinical skills, clinical judgement and critical thinking while caring for our nation’s Veterans. This program provides opportunities for learning with a qualified RN preceptor. Students must have completed their junior year in an accredited baccalaureate nursing program. VALOR students are offered up to 800 hours of salary dollars.
Work at VA
Are you ready to help us heal and care for Veterans so they can thrive in life after military service? Apply for a job as a VA nurse.
VA offers a range of family services for Veterans and their family members, including family education, brief problem-focused consultation, family psychoeducation, and marriage and family counseling. Our psychiatric nurses play an integral part in facilitating these services, working with all members of the family to provide holistic solutions.
Drop-in centers where Veterans who are homeless can shower, get a meal, and get help with a job or getting back into society
Transitional housing in community-based programs
Long-term assistance, case management and rehabilitation
3. Veterans with Serious Mental Illness
Veterans diagnosed with Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder and Bipolar Disorder work with VHA psychiatric nurses on a variety of treatment plans, including psychosocial rehabilitation and recovery services to optimize functioning. In addition, you’ll be a part of our Mental Health Intensive Case Management team. The team of mental health physicians, nurses, psychologists and social workers helps Veterans experiencing symptoms of severe mental illness cope with their symptoms and live more successfully at home and in the community.
To provide specialized care for our older Veterans, we’ve developed VA Community Living Centers (CLCs). Here, you will treat older Veterans needing temporary assisted care until they can return home or find placement in a nursing home. Our staff also works on ensuring that Veterans can safely live independently by screening for dementia and general assessments that help us decide whether the Veteran can make informed medical decisions.
As a psychiatric nurse at VHA, the work you do will deeply affect the Veteran, their family and generations of families to come. View our Nursing positions or, Join VA in making a difference in one of the many other health care fields available.
VA Nurse Karen Brodlo sat in a restaurant enjoying her dinner when she heard someone yell to call 911.
She looked up to see an elderly woman had collapsed and was not breathing. The woman was having dinner with her husband when the night took a turn for the worst.
She continued manual CPR process until the rescue team arrived. She then turned her focus to the husband who was nervous and scared for his wife’s well-being. She tried to calm him down as the rescue team continued to work to save the woman’s life.
She remembers the worst part being, not having the equipment she needed. She suggested to the restaurant after the incident that a general-use defibrillator would be a useful addition. Just as most businesses have fire extinguishers, a defibrillator should also be a requirement. Just as easy to use, it’s better to have and not need it than to need it and not have it.
The restaurant now gives her star treatment. The daughter of the woman she saved sent a bouquet of flowers along with a heartfelt thank you card calling Brodlo her mom’s “Guardian Angel.”
Brodlo is a nurse at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago.
As a caring nurse who adores her job, she followed up on the status of her honorary patient. Sadly, a couple of weeks after the incident, the woman passed away from further complications, but the family was overwhelmingly grateful.
The last days with any family member or loved one is crucial. If it wasn’t for the quick actions of nurse Karen Brodlo, they would have missed out on the opportunity to say their last goodbye.
In honor of Nurses Week 2019, Acting Chief Nursing Officer Beth Taylor celebrates nurses and nursing careers at VA
As Acting Chief Nursing Officer for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Beth Taylor, DHA RN, NEA-BC, provides executive leadership and strategic direction for the Office of Nursing Services. She also advises the Under Secretary for Health on nursing issues that impact the 100,000 VA nursing personnel nationwide who care for Veterans. Taylor has served the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) since 1996, when she joined the Aleda E. Lutz VA Medical Center in Saginaw, Michigan, as Associate Director for Patient Care Services/Nurse Executive. Taylor assumed her current position, which is based at VA’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, on April 2, 2018.
I worked in the private sector for many years. I decided to pursue a career in VA for two reasons. One, I’m proud to say I come from a very long line of Veterans in my family and was the first generation not to serve in the military. And so, I looked at this as an opportunity to provide my service to our nation. The other reason is that I was recruited by another chief nursing officer at VA who was retiring. She talked to me about the great opportunities here and the wonderful mission of VA. She was right, and I stayed for the next 20-some years.
What are your reasons for celebrating the nurses you lead and serve with at VA?
VA nurses touch our Veterans’ lives 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We’re one of the professions that is present during administrative hours and throughout all the nonadministrative hours. When you think about it, that’s when the majority of healthcare for our inpatients and our long-term care residents is provided.
When you look at the quality outcomes for our health system, VA nurses make such a strong contribution to improving the health of our Veterans. They are by the bedside providing not only the clinical expertise and knowledge, but also that human compassion that ensures that our Veterans are not only receiving quality healthcare but they’re also comfortable, and they know there’s somebody there who cares for them and is watching over them. I think that’s what makes nurses so special and certainly our VA nurses exemplify that aspect of our profession.
We are the largest nursing corps in the United States — possibly the world. And so, the second joy is knowing that I am supporting the nearly 100,000-strong nursing corps that is VA. Through the examination of the policies and being the clinical and leadership voice on various committees, I want to make sure that nursing is represented and that we make it easier for nurses to do.
Coming to work every day, my goal is to make it easier for the nurses to do a great job in meeting the mission and taking care of the patients every day.
What are one or two areas you plan to focus on in leading VA’s nurses over the next year or two?
As within the larger healthcare industry, we have a growing percentage of the RN population that is over age 50 and a shrinking percentage that is under age 30, which is a real concern. We have a mission of ensuring the next generation of workforce through our training programs, and we focus on how we can bring new undergraduate and graduate nurses. We also want to transfer the great knowledge and experience of our senior nurses to our newer nurses.
Why should nurses starting out in their careers take a closer look at VA?
In my experience, VA is the richest employer in terms of the scholarship opportunities that we offer nurses — not only scholarships on the front end, which help pay their tuition through the program that they are interested in pursuing but also through the Education Debt Reduction Program that allows us to offset college debt. We have an opportunity to offset some debt for people who have completed their degrees already and are employed at VA in key positions.
What are some other ways that VA supports nurses and nursing careers?
One mechanism we use to promote nursing is the nursing residency program, which invites nurses in training to work at VA. Another way is by looking at our pay structure and ensuring that we’re competitive. We also look at scholarship opportunities and make sure that we have plenty of opportunities to grow nurses, whether folks come in as nursing assistants and advance to become Advanced Practice Nurses or RNs. We need to have those career paths in place so we can have a strong and well-prepared workforce for the future.
What are the career paths for nurses at VA?
There are so many different avenues in which you can take your nursing career at VA. You can pursue continuing education. You can pursue graduate education and become a provider. You can pursue becoming a nurse researcher — we have many nurses who work in research and contribute to knowledge, best practices and clinical leadership practices. So, there’s a variety of different avenues that you can take at VA. We have facilities in all 50 states so you can go anywhere as a VA nurse and continue serving the mission.
