I AM UAA: Robin Bassett, R.N., A.N.P.


M.S. Nursing '10
Hometown: Savannah, Georgia
Fun fact: Plays the fiddle and sings with the Derry Aires

"All I ever wanted to be was a nurse," says CAPT. Robin Bassett, a nurse practitioner and commissioned officer with the U.S. Public Health Service working in nephrology at Alaska Native Medical Center. Her resolve prevailed even when she was offered a full music scholarship to Georgia Southern University as a young woman. She jokes, "I realized I couldn't be a nurse with a music degree."

But Robin could be a musician with a nursing degree. And an actress, theatrical director, wife, mother, fisherwoman and winter sports enthusiast-all of which she's embraced in her last 10 years as an Alaskan. (Bonus fun fact: Once upon a time, she was also a fiddling Miss America contestant in the Miss Georgia pageant-it paid for her last year of undergraduate nursing school even though her rendition of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" didn't earn her the crown.)

 In the years before Robin earned her master's degree in nursing from UAA, she worked as a critical care nurse, health care corporation consultant and home health nurse, to tick off just a few resume highlights. Life with her active duty military husband, David, who she met and married in Georgia, involved lots of travel. His military career introduced them to Alaska when they were stationed in Fairbanks in the '90s. "As most military people do," she says, "we fell in love with Alaska."

The Bassetts found a way to return to Alaska in 2002, when, by all accounts, they did it in style, landing their two-seater, homebuilt Adventura airplane on the lake in their new Eagle River backyard after a nine-day trip from Florida. (Did we forget to mention Robin is also a private pilot?)

"It was a fabulous adventure!" Robin says. They soon settled into life in Alaska with their two toddlers. She became an R.N. case manager in nephrology at Alaska Native Medical Center and joined the U.S. Public Health Service. At ANMC she discovered a new passion-kidney health-and made it her business to learn all she could from literature and the nephrologists with whom she worked who were thrilled to share their knowledge with an internal medicine acolyte.

In the back of her mind, though, Robin had always thought about pursuing a graduate degree. "When I was an undergraduate, we were all going to get our master's degrees," she says of her nursing cohort. So, 15 years, several moves and a family later, she began looking at graduate school options. She liked that UAA offered a blend of distance and traditional classes. "The more I found out about UAA and the nursing program, the more I thought, I want my master's degree to say University of Alaska."

After taking it slow for a few semesters (one or two classes at a time), Robin was offered a slot in the School of Nursing's master's program administrative track, which she thought would be the best fit for her skills and experience. A fateful conversation at work changed her mind and the course of her career.

A family practice doctor in Nome was on the phone consulting about a kidney patient with anemia and Robin was giving him the run-down-"the literature says this" and "we recommend that." She recalls being amazed that he was so receptive to everything she was saying. "I said, 'you know, I'm not a nephrologist,' and he said, 'I know but I trust you.' I hung up the phone and thought, 'I'm in the wrong track!'"

With gracious support from SON administrators, Robin switched to the Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) track. She laughs that of course she would choose a program that involved 200 more clinical hours than are required for professional certification and of course, against all advice, she would continue to work full-time throughout the program. "Amazing what you can accomplish when you don't have a choice," she says.

Her boss at ANMC, Cindy Wilson, also happened to be an alum of UAA's School of Nursing and granted Robin a flexible work schedule. "I could come to work in the morning, leave in the middle of the day to do clinicals in pediatrics, then back to finish my day."

Robin graduated with her master's degree in nursing two years after joining the FNP track. "I was really driven, because I knew this was what I wanted to do. I may be late, but now I know what I want to do! It's the best decision I ever made."

Robin decided she loved where she was working and wanted to continue her work in nephrology, so she wrote up a business plan that allowed her to join the nephrology clinic at ANMC in her new role as a nurse practitioner. She is currently practicing with two other UAA SON alums, Mary Ann Rowen, A.N.P., and Jon "Nick" Manwaring, A.N.P., and they have voiced their enthusiasm for becoming preceptors. "We want to have UAA students in here. That's our school," she says, and they all acknowledge the importance of community collaboration with health care education.

Robin is grateful for the emphasis on both scholarship and leadership in UAA's School of Nursing. Together with SON Associate Director Maureen O'Malley, she is working to refine and publish her thesis on kidney disease among Alaska Natives. She's also assisting Maureen with the development of a web-based elective class on kidney disease. And in an effort to continue the legacy of nursing leadership fostered by SON Director Barbara Berner, Robin has recently taken the helm as president of the Alaska Nurse Practitioner Association.

"That's one of the things UAA taught me-you have to remain involved," Robin says. "Barb has done so much to promote nurse practitioners in Alaska and make sure our practice is not limited in any way by statute and we need to continue to carry that torch."

Outside of her nephrology practice, she's been able to enjoy Alaska with her family. Involvement with the Alaska Fine Arts Academy in Eagle River has become a family affair. Her daughters, Savannah and Julia Faith, now both teenagers, are comfortable in roles on and off the stage where Robin also acts, directs and sits on their board of directors. After a recent successful run directing "The Odd Couple," she's set to direct "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

Now that Robin's husband has retired from the military and started a second career with the Transportation and Security Administration as a dog handler, they've also welcomed a new family member at home-a highly trained explosives-sniffing Labrador Retriever who puts in long days at the Anchorage airport.

It's a full plate for nurse-practitioner-by-day Robin Bassett, but she wouldn't have it any other way. And to those who encourage her to think about med school, she has a simple, sincere response: "I love being a nurse practitioner. I can do what I want to do with the degree that I have."