Doctoral students in the health policy practicum course get real experience doing what seems daunting to most people. More importantly, they need only look to nursing faculty, such as Karen Robinson, for role models.

Robinson has worked throughout her career at the local and regional levels to examine health policy and influence the lawmaking process. Now she’s in Washington, D.C., the first recipient of an American Association of Retired Persons/American Academy of Nursing Joint Fellowship program.

Working through the newly created Center to Champion Nursing in America, she has compiled information that outlines factors contributing to the national nursing shortage and the effect it has on patient care. There are more than 100,000 unfilled nursing posts in hospitals alone. She hopes her work helps fundraising efforts to support expanded nursing education programs and efforts to prepare more nursing faculty. Without those, the nurse workforce could fall about 1 million short by 2020.

Building on her 30-year career of research in helping the elderly — and those who care for them — Robinson also is working on care for an aging population. In 1992, she created our Volunteer Caregivers program to provide support services to caregivers and families affected by Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. Now she wants to take the program to younger family members via Web-based training and will use her time in Washington to get started.

Robinson seized the opportunity to use her knowledge and passion at the national level. She gave doctoral student Valerie McCarthy the opportunity to contribute at the national level, too, when she joined her for two weeks in Spring 2008. But then, that’s what being a role model is all about.

Read Robinson's blog about her work in Washington, D.C.