My Non-Traditional Journey to USF Nursing School
As a BSN alumna of the University of San Francisco (USF), I see nursing as a personal commitment to serving the common good, a value at the heart of USF’s Jesuit mission. My journey to USF nursing school was a bit nontraditional. My husband and I upended our East Coast lives for a West Coast adventure. I left the world of finance and followed my heart into science. Nursing seemed like the perfect intersection of science and healing – face to face with patients in what are often the most vulnerable times in their lives. The USF program fit my search perfectly while giving me an opportunity to learn in one of the world’s greatest cities.
At the time I enrolled, HIV was ravaging parts of the community; people were scared, and nurses played a critical role in countering the fear by providing compassionate and rigorous care, not unlike the role nurses played in the more recent pandemic. My professors and preceptors were pivotal in preparing me and my classmates for the unknown; we learned not only how to perform complex procedures, but also how to listen carefully to our patients and learn what elements of healing they needed beyond the physiologic components we were providing.
During my nursing school education, the USF nursing school value of courage resonated deeply. Courage to challenge existing paradigms, courage to challenge the treatment of a patient by someone who did not understand respectful care. Courage to completely change my life and my work in ways that set a path I might not have imagined in my early twenties. Courage to pursue a doctoral degree at UCSF and then courage to turn my research to some of the most vexing problems on the African continent.
Today I am the principal investigator for a multi-country project in Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, and Sierra Leone. The focus of my work is elevating and enhancing the work of nurses and midwives to prevent death and disability among women and neonates during childbirth. In many of the countries where my work takes place, giving birth carries a disproportionate amount of risk. Every day I work with some of the most talented nurses and midwives on the planet. On the front lines, asking the hard questions that shape research, policy, and most importantly, patients’ lives. In retrospect, my nursing career has always focused on elevating the visibility of nursing and reinforcing how nursing influences patient outcomes. I believe, without question, there will never be health equity globally without a more substantial investment in nursing. Nurses are, in the words of the USF School of Nursing and Health Professions mission statement, the ones with the hearts, minds, and souls to change the health of the world.
