Michelle Kahn-John
Psychiatric NP, Educator, & Researcher
Dr. Michelle Kahn-John is a member of the Navajo Nation, Big Water Clan. She grew up on the Navajo Nation in Fort Defiance, Arizona and knew she wanted to be in a healing profession since a young age, in part from her mother who was a medicine woman. She began her nursing education in 1995 with her Associate Degree of Nursing from the University of New Mexico in Gallup, followed by earning her Bachelor’s of Nursing the next year from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Her first role as a nurse was on the pediatric, and later adult, medical-surgical unit. In 1996, she worked for two years as a public health nurse at the Fort Defiance Indian Hospital in Fort Defiance, Arizona, which inspired her to continue her education as a nurse practitioner.
Dr. Kahn-John graduated as a psychiatric and geriatric nurse practitioner from the University of Colorado in 2000 and went on to work in a variety of roles such as nurse practitioner, behavioral health director, and health systems administrator at Fort Defiance Indian Hospital. Seeing the rates of suicide, depression, and anxiety both first hand in her community and clinically through her work, sparked her interest to pursue her PhD to research mental health protective factors. Based on the Navajo concept of Hózhó, which emphasizes respectful, right relationship, self-love, and self compassion, the use of healing ceremony, and integration between the physical, mental, spiritual, emotional realms, her work aims to leverage the Navajo concept of wellness to inform her practice and research.
I hope to be able to bring some of these [Navajo] teachings to the world, in a respectful way… Creating nurturing learning environments is another passion of mine.
Over the last six years, Dr. Kahn-John has served as a mentor and dissertation committee member to dozens of DNP and PhD students. Since 2017 she has been a peer reviewer for the Journal of Transcultural Nursing and the Journal of the American Psychiatric Association. She has been the principal investigator for million dollar (and plus), multi-year grants from the Health Resources and Services Administration and Indian Health Services, and has received numerous honors and awards, including the Dine Studies Conference: Award for research excellence on the Navajo Nation in 2018. She continues to practice as a nurse practitioner, and also serves a research associate with the University of Arizona College of Nursing and as the Nursing Program Director with the Navajo Technical Institute.
Further Resources
View Dr. Kahn-John’s Nurses You Should Know Video.
Read about Hózhó and Dr. Kahn-John’s PhD dissertation.
Learn about the history Native Americans and the nursing profession here.
Support the National Alaska Native American Indian Nurses Association.
Sources
The information for the above profile was provided by Dr. Michelle Khan-John.
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