For Leslie Wheeless '10, the path to YSN has been full of surprises

Leslie Wheeless '10 is a part-time student learning to be a family nurse practitioner at Yale, while working as an RN in an inner-city emergency department. The urban setting is a long way from her origins in rural Wyoming, but her journey has already taken her much further from home.

Wheeless first left Wyoming and her family, rooted in the American Indian community, for Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, in 1998. Once there, she found her passion for pre-med studies had turned to ambivalence. Feeling the pressure of mounting student loan debt, Wheeless wished she could buy time. "I was a lost soul looking for purpose," she said of this period. "I was 19, my only skills were checking groceries and waiting tables; living on my own wasn't an option."

In what Wheeless described as "either a moment of weakness or a moment of clarity," she saw an ad for the Army and decided enlisting would give her the time she needed. Intending to serve the military in the medical field, Wheeless was instead recruited into Army Intelligence. Life at Fort Lewis in Washington State, researching Asian topography, was far from the James Bond lifestyle she had imagined while in the recruiter's office.

After September 11, 2001, she suddenly had a new assignment. "I was just pinned with my sergeant stripes when I received word I'd be reporting to the Middle East, alone, without my unit," she said. Wheeless was deployed overseas for over a year, as one of four women in a 200-person unit. First in Djibouti and then Qatar, she served in both Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

While in Djibouti, Wheeless became the assigned expert on Somalia and was moved by the humanitarian efforts she witnessed there. She was inspired by the international teams of medical workers and the difference they made in Somalia, even after much of the world stopped paying attention. "It dawned on me that nursing was a way to make a difference in the world," Wheeless added.

Wheeless had intended to return to Dartmouth after her four-year enlistment but realized that her GI Bill funds would get eaten up quickly there. Instead, she decided to enter a nursing program and found that, by coincidence, the most economical option was at the University of Wyoming, and so she returned to her home state.

While earning her RN, Wheeless interned with a nurse practitioner at the VA hospital. Her mentor talked about the autonomy of the nurse practitioner role, while maintaining "a sense of how a nurse relates to people." Wheeless had planned to stop with a bachelor's degree, but through these conversations she realized that, "an advanced practice degree is what I want."

This is a common motivation for pursuing an advanced degree, according to YSN Associate Professor Ivy Alexander,PhD, C-ANP, Director of the Adult, Family, Gerontological, and Women's Health Primary Care Specialty. "Advanced practice provides nurses the opportunity to apply their skills with greater independence, while using the patient-centered philosophy of nursing," she explained.

Having found her calling, Wheeless began looking all over the US for advanced practice nursing programs. The "safest" option was to continue at Wyoming. "I applied to Yale just to say I had tried, never thinking I'd get in." Even though she was "stunned in disbelief" at being accepted, Wheeless had to think seriously about the economic reality of moving across the country and finding a job as a nurse while going to school.

Despite these worries, she explained, "I jumped at the chance to work with and be mentored by the YSN faculty. They are the movers and shakers of the nursing world." The day of her college graduation ceremony, Wheeless already had the moving truck packed up, and the next day, she and her dad headed out on their long drive to Connecticut.

After enrolling at YSN, Wheeless, who is Laguna Pueblo Indian, was awarded a full scholarship through the Indian Health Service. She will repay the scholarship with three years of service at an Indian health center after graduating from YSN. This could mean anything from an urban substance abuse center to a rural primary care clinic. To pay her living expenses, she is currently employed in the Emergency Department at New Haven's St. Raphael Hospital, and she plans to graduate with no student loan debt.

Alexander said YSN makes a special effort to help RNs balance the competing demands of work and school. "Because these students have unique needs, we strive to individualize clinical placements and course sequencing, to build upon their prior expertise. YSN also encourages students to learn from one another by sharing their experiences in seminar discussions," she added.

After making the transition from rural VA hospital to urban emergency department, Wheeless feels ready for anything. While life in the emergency department is exhausting, she loves her work because she is gaining valuable experience. She is presented with mysterious illnesses on a regular basis, and she remarked, "There is no such thing as a routine day."

Wheeless is committed to serving in Native communities, and with her experience overseas, she is also drawn to international health care. This interest has only grown after traveling to Hong Kong for Professor Pat Jackson Allen's course in traditional Chinese medicine.

There are a great many plans in the future for Leslie Wheeless, including a Masters in Public Health, "down the road." If her past proves anything, it's that she is not afraid of a challenge.

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