As an avid scuba diver, Cheryl D. Nava breathes with an oxygen tank underwater. For many years at UT Southwestern, she’s been part of the team helping people breathe on their own after a lung transplant.

“It is an honor to get to know these patients and their families. You become a link, a connector, a liaison, a lifeline to them,” she says. “You develop a bond with them – a bond that gets tested with the challenges that come their way in their journey after they receive their new lung or lungs.”

Ms. Nava, a Registered Nurse and Post-Lung Transplant Coordinator, has worked at UT Southwestern since 1980.

After first working as a Staff Nurse, she was assigned to work nights in the intensive care unit. She remembers keeping as busy as possible, “doing something every minute,” because she is not a night person. Years later, Ms. Nava still remembers how she and her co-workers once had a sack race in a hallway when they had some time to spare.

“I never laughed so hard in the middle of the night,” she says.

From 1999 to 2003, Ms. Nava was a Clinical Educator, a position in which one of her responsibilities was to train new graduate nurses. She loves her current position because it enables her to take care of patients and still have an educational role – teaching patients and their family members how to thrive after a lung transplant.

“To hear them say, ‘I love you, Cheryl,’ and ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done for me and my family,’ at the end of their journey can be heart-wrenching, but at the same time very fulfilling, knowing you’ve made a difference in their lives,” she says.

Ms. Nava’s personal philosophy is to trust in God and see each day as a gift: Moments of stress can be overcome by remembering what great impact the work has had on patients and their families, she says. Co-workers would describe her as a detail-oriented person who can find a needle in a haystack.

Her connection to medicine and UT Southwestern runs deep: Three of Ms. Nava’s four sisters also became nurses. When she worked at the former St. Paul University Hospital, two of her sisters and her father, an electrician, also worked for St. Paul.

Outside of scuba diving, Ms. Nava loves baking, building and fixing things, photography (including underwater photography), and dogs. She participates in the Dog Scouts of America, a nonprofit that promotes responsible ownership to improve the lives of dogs and their owners.