Cindy Colglazier has a history of filling medical needs in Brown County.

That’s why she’s “thrilled” to come home as a new nurse practitioner at Salt Creek Family Practice.

Colglazier has been working in the Indiana University Health Ellettsville practice there since 2012. But since the late ‘70s, she has spent much of her career here.

“I have been Brown County for years, so I feel like I helped immunize half the county and care for them,” she said. “It’s a blessing to be able to come back and serve the county that I kind of, more or less, medically grew up in.”

Colglazier starts work at Brown County Dec. 18, alongside existing nurse practitioner Dee Swanson and Dr. Marin Garcia.

Swanson successfully petitioned IU Health to add another nurse practitioner. Her practice is currently full, though she accepts new people on a case-by-case basis, usually family of existing patients.

Adding Colglazier will allow more people to be seen in Brown County instead of traveling to an urgent care center in Columbus or Bloomington, Swanson said. Now, the practice will be able to do same-day appointments.

“We’d rather take care of them in their medical home,” Swanson said.

“It was a logical fit to bring somebody from the community back to the community. She knows a lot of people here.”

Colglazier received her associate degree in nursing from IU School of Nursing in 1977. After working as a nurse’s aide and registered nurse at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis from 1976 to 1978, she married her husband, Rick, and moved to Brown County.

She began working for Dr. Tim Alward in August 1978 at a health center in downtown Nashville.

In 1988, she began caring for the women, infants and children of Brown County as the registered nurse of the WIC program.

Then from 1992 to 2003, she worked as the school nurse for Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation, and the couple lived in Columbus. She received her bachelor’s degree from the IU School of Nursing in 2004.

The Colglaziers moved back to Brown County in 2008. From 2002 to 2003, and one month in 2006, Colglazier worked for the Brown County Health Department.

She then served as a school nurse for Brown County Schools from 2003 to 2011 with fellow nurse Cathy Miller. The two co-wrote a grant to establish a coordinated school health program in Brown County Schools.

In 2011, Colglazier received her master’s degree in family health from the IU School of Nursing. She was certified as a family nurse practitioner with the IU School of Nursing that year.

While earning her master’s degree, Colglazier had to do multiple medical preceptors, where a practicing physician volunteers to teach medical students about the profession in their office. Colglazier did one of those terms of study under Swanson.

Swanson pushed Colglazier to become a nurse practitioner after interacting with her at school events when she was a nurse there.

“She was excellent. I knew she would be. That’s why I encouraged her,” Swanson said.

Colglazier worked as a nurse practitioner at Salt Creek Family Practice from August 2011 to February 2012, then transferred to the Ellettsville practice.

She said she’s excited to be working with Swanson again, whom she calls her role model.

Colglazier will start seeing patients at 7 a.m. on Wednesdays. She will see patients at 7:30 a.m. on Mondays and Fridays. She said she looks forward to talking with people about health and wellness, including eating healthy and getting daily exercise based on how each patient can move.

Despite the fatigue she feels after standing for 10 hours on a leg she’s broken twice, Colglazier said she continues to work in the medical field because it’s in her blood. Her aunt, grandmother, great-grandmother and cousin all work or had worked in the medical field.

“I would like to keep going as long as these legs will do it,” she said. “It keeps your mind busy. I’ve just learned so much, I just can’t let it go. Not for a while.”

Swanson said she knows Colglazier will take good care of the people in Brown County.

“We want high-quality, accessible care, and that’s what Cindy is going to help us with,” Swanson said.

“She will do it with a smile.”

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Dr. Marin Garcia and nurse practitioner Cindy Colglazier are taking new patients at Salt Creek Family Practice on Willow Street in Nashville.

Colglazier’s first day is Dec. 18. She will work Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

To schedule an appointment, call 812-988-2231.

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