 The nation's first nurse practitioner program, established at the University of Colorado in 1965 by Henry Silver and Loretta Ford, trained pediatric nurse practitioners rather than family nurse practitioners.The University of New Mexico project, which was designed to improve healthcare at all ages by addressing a shortage of physicians across the country and especially in rural areas, was developed by physicians Robert Oseasohn and Edward Mortimer, who visited Hope Clinic in the rural Estancia Valley on a weekly basis during Schwebach's tenure.Schwebach worked as a family nurse practitioner at the Hope Medical Center Estancia from 1969 to 1977.