Scholars@Duke

Dr. Blanca (Iris) Padilla is an Assistant Professor a the Duke University School of Nursing. Her professional nursing experience includes trauma-critical care, emergency room, and primary care. Dr. Padilla earned her MSN at Tennessee State University. Dr. Padilla’s PhD research at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan - Division of Health Promotion and Risk Reduction. 

Dr. Padilla is a family nurse practitioner and has provided primary care to the under-served population for over 16 years. She has led the diabetes clinic in Nashville and is currently the diabetes consultant at a federally qualify health center in Durham. She has first-hand clinical expertise in caring for the under-privileged patient population and understands the needs of primary care clinic personnel/administration as they pertain to supporting and caring for vulnerable patients.

Dr. Padilla is the Director of an ANE HRSA grant. This grant focuses on establishing and enhancing academic-practice partnership in primary care setting. In addition, this grant allowed for creating a Preceptor Web-site to help engage and enhance preceptors in primary care and also establish a diabetes/endocrinology specialty. 

Dr. Padilla has a strong interest in delivering care for the under-served population. Other interest include diabetes self-care, adherence, co-morbid depression, insulin initiation and education. Dr. Padilla has been a co-investigator/consultant on an R01 NIH-funded intervention research project on improving medication adherence for the underserved population with diabetes. Her passion for the under-served as open pathways and collaboration with others and created modules on unconscious bias.

Dr. Padilla has a strong interest in Interprofessional Education (IPE) and care. She has several years of experience in IPE.  She was one of the first clinical preceptors for the Vanderbilt Program in Interprofessional Learning (VPIL). She is currently the Lead NP faculty for the IPE Clinic at DUHS where she teaches learners from different professions. In addition, she was involved in the Duke Regional Hospital project, establishing IPE in a GenMed unit.