The Colorado Army National Guard made history when U.S. Army Col. Laura A. Thomas was selected to be the first ARNG nurse consultant to the surgeon general in June 2024, a top position in the Army medical profession.
Thomas has extensive knowledge in military medicine having served in the Active Duty Army, the Army National Guard, and also the U.S. Air Force.
“Looking to the future, I’m excited as I feel like this role is the culmination of all my experience,” said Thomas. “I’ve learned a lot about how nurses are utilized across both services and components. As the Army National Guard 66H consultant, I can leverage those experiences and advise the surgeon general on ways to develop and operationalize ARNG nurses in unique ways. This will be very important when planning for a future conflict.”
Thomas is currently the medical readiness detachment commander for the Colorado Army National Guard.
The Army Medical Branch has eight corps, six officer, one enlisted, and one civilian, which encapsulate the various forms of medical care within the Army. The Active Army and the Army Reserve already have consultants for each corps and the various specialties.
The ARNG, however, has only recently been represented, with a physician and physician assistant selected last year.
In her role as the Surgical Nursing Consultant to The Surgeon General, Thomas advises The Surgeon General on all matters related to the ARNG ’s Nurse Corps and attends meetings related to the Army medical profession as a whole.
Additionally, The Surgeon General, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Mary Izaguirre, has charged Thomas with “enabling the readiness of all the Officers within [her] specialty and, more to the point, of grooming the next generation of leaders.”
Thomas commissioned into the U.S. Army Nurse Corps through the University of Portland’s Army ROTC program in 1995. She served on Active Duty for four years before transitioning to the ARNG in Kansas where she served for an additional three years in a variety of roles across the state.
In 2007, Thomas received a United States Air Force Health Professions Scholarship and earned her Master of Science in Nursing as an Adult – Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner. After an interservice transfer, she served six years in the Air Force, during which time she deployed to Afghanistan and served as Flight Commander of the Outpatient Clinic at Craig Joint Theater Hospital.
Thomas was then selected for Advanced Civil Schooling in 2011 and earned her Doctorate of Nursing Practice at University of Colorado, Anschutz. After a break in service, she felt compelled to return to service and joined the Colorado Army National Guard in 2021.
Outside of the military, Thomas has an equally full list of accomplishments. She worked for three years on the Nurse Physician Advisory Taskforce for Colorado Health, a Governor appointed position, and contributed to Colorado instituting full practice and prescriptive authority to nurse practitioners. She has served as a committee member and national speaker for the last five years for the National Nurse Practitioner Symposium and maintains a clinical practice in Lone Tree, Colorado, two days a week.
Passionate about seeing the Army Nurse Corps improve, Thomas has already been a proactive member of these conversations and even attended the latest Army Nurse Corps Strategic Leader Conference in March 2024.
“Having the opportunity to spend time with the Army Nurse Corps Chief and his team was a very motivating experience,” said Thomas. “The ability to contribute, as an ARNG nurse, to developing the Corps’ Line of Efforts was great. The ARNG nurses are an untapped resource that will be critical to utilize in a future conflict and it was important that I was able to be at the table, able to share potential ways to leverage us. Now, as a consultant to The Surgeon General, I can continue to build on that experience and, hopefully, influence the future utilization of ARNG nurses in alignment with AMEDD’s overall mission.”
| Date Taken: | 07.17.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 07.26.2024 17:18 |
| Story ID: | 477145 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 113 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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