Norma Martinez Rogers

Ph.D., RN, FAAN

Norma Martinez Rogers, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, has spent her life in service to the community, first as a teacher in the Edgewood Independent School District and a Caseworker for San Antonio’s Catholic Family and Children services, before embarking on a career in nursing education.  She has served the needs of the San Antonio population as a nurse, a nurse educator, an advocate for the underserved population, and an advocate for health policy changes in regards to healthcare.

Dr. Martinez Rogers has a PhD in “Cultural Foundations” from the University of Texas at Austin and subsequently earned two postdoctoral fellowships at the Indiana University School of Nursing.  She is a member of the graduate faculty of the UT Health Science Center’s School of Nursing, where she currently serves as a tenured Professor.

She has co-founded a non- profit organization, Martinez Street Women’s Center whose primary purpose is to provide support and educational services to women and female adolescents.  At the University of Texas Health Science Center, she founded “Juntos Podemos”, a mentorship program for students who are at risk to not be successful academically.  The program is presently funded by HRSA.

Dr. Martinez Rogers partnered with the US Western District Court Probation Office to provide a female specific program for women convicted of a federal felon and are under community supervision. She began this program to prevent relapse/recidivism. It was the only female group in the Western District Court.

In November, 2006, she was selected to be a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN) which is the highest honor one can achieve in nursing. She is the past President of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN) and recently founded the International Association Latino Nurse Faculty.

After a rigorous selection process, she was appointed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office to be a member of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) which will examine how Medicaid physician pay affects access to care by Medicaid patients and those in the Children's Health Insurance Program, among other issues. She is the only Latina and the only nurse. Presently, the Commission is discussing the future of CHIP and will be drafting a report and recommendation to Congress. They will be hearing from federal and state partners in Medicaid managed care program integrity. They will be looking at how states are currently monitoring access to services for their fee-for-service populations, and how they plan to do so in compliance with the final equal access rule.