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Nursing Renaissance CNA/NNOC board member bonnie martin is making it her mission to restore and improve RNs' scope of practice. by e ri ka l a rs on R egistered n urse practitioner Bonnie Martin was a 15-year-old Chicago student with mediocre grades and no real plans for the future when, by chance, her high school invited a licensed vocational nurse to speak to students about considering a career in nursing. The following year, Martin's high school became the inaugural testing ground for a part-time LVN program. "From the moment that instructor opened her mouth, I was fascinated by everything to do with nursing," she recalled. Almost overnight, Martin became an exemplary pupil with a profound motivation driving her to a clear career path. For two years, she attended a half day of high school and a half day of nursing school. When she graduated, the 18year-old LVN was valedictorian of her class. The cooperative program between Chicago high schools and LVN programs, having graduated alumni like Martin, still remains in place today. "This vocational training gives young people something to do in high school that makes them feel successful and gives them direction—it's a great program. I don't know if I ever would have thought of nursing otherwise," she says. "But here I am now, and I've never looked back." After proving herself to be an avid student of the art of nursing, people encouraged her to further her education by obtaining her RN diploma. Martin returned to Tennessee, where she was born, to attend the Methodist Hospital School of Nursing in Memphis. Three years later, she was an RN, and went to work immediately. Martin worked in various nursing roles throughout the continental United States and Hawaii as her ex-husband's work in the military relocated them. After living previously in California, Martin returned for a second time in 1988. She knew, with the same love-at-first-sight immediacy that the she felt as a teenager upon entering the LVN program, that California was where she would spend the rest of her life. "I never felt at home in the Midwest—which sounds strange, I know, having grown up in Chicago, but I just knew immediately when I came to California that I was home," said Martin. Upon settling in California for the second (and final) time, Martin began working at Kaiser Permanente in Stockton and became a nurse practitioner in 1998. She currently works with geriatric patients in nursing homes that have been contracted by Kaiser. "I love working with seniors," she said sincerely. "It's my nursing life." Martin described how caring for seniors is extremely complex, but challenging and fulfilling. "Seniors are extremely vulnerable. They're the second-most vulnerable segment of our population after infants, and yet they're the most complicated to care for," she said. "You're dealing with physical health, which is extremely complex in 14 REGISTERED NURSE seniors, because it's not just one system of the body or just one illness you're treating, but a combination of interconnected issues. You also have to consider emotional health, financial issues, and social issues. Obviously I deal with death and dying a lot. One of the most rewarding things in my career is to help someone die with as much dignity and as little pain as possible. If they want to live, then I do my best to help them live as long as possible." In a style fitting of a woman whose great life choices have been made swiftly and without regret, Martin's rise to the leadership of CNA/NNOC has been rapid and condensed into the past few years. She didn't get involved with union matters until 2002, when she became more interested in the role that NPs played in her facility and in the union. "I asked around and heard about a council meeting. I had no idea what it was about, but I went anyway, and it turned out to be a unit getting ready for bargaining. They asked for volunteers to go to JABC [ joint area bargaining committee]," she said, adding with a W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G DECEMBER 2007