Colleen Leners, D.N.P., FNP-BC, APRN

Colleen Leners most recently served as the traumatic brain injury (TBI) program manager for Naval Medical Center San Diego. She also worked as a clinical faculty member at the University of San Diego nurse practitioner program. Leners is a board-certified family nurse practitioner with a post-Master’s certificate specializing in emergency medicine.

Prior to becoming the TBI program manager, she was the principal nurse practitioner for the Wounded, Ill, and Injured Primary Care Clinic for the Comprehensive Combat & Complex Casualty Care (C5) Department, providing holistic care to service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Before joining the C5 program, Leners served as a major in the U.S. Army. She deployed to Iraq as the officer in charge of the Outpatient Services Forward Operating Base. As the only female provider, she volunteered to leave the forward operating base to train Iraqi Army members and care for civilians. She was awarded the Bronze Star for her work with all echelons of the Combat Support Hospital.

Leners has held leadership positions in local and state nursing organizations primarily focusing on military and veterans’ health care issues and underserved populations of the community. She is past president of Sigma Theta Tau, Zeta Mu (2010-2014) and the Emergency Nurses Association of Nevada. She is active on the Health Policy and Practice Committee for the California Association of Nurse Practitioners. She was recently elected to the National Nominations Committee for the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. She has received numerous military and civilian awards, including Emergency Nurse of the Year (Nevada) and recognition as Health Care Champion in 2008 by the San Diego Business Journal.

Leners received her DNP from Case Western Reserve University, where she was honored with the Dean’s Legacy Award. She earned her MSN in the family nurse practitioner program from University of San Diego and BSN from California State University, Dominguez Hills.