Lessons from encountering patients

When Rita Rogers was a young girl, she witnessed the work of nurses caring for her sister who has a heart condition and a rare genetic disorder, and caring for her mother when she had delivery complications after childbirth.

The 21-year-old graduating senior from Manassas, Virginia, in the Conway School of Nursing at The Catholic University of America said seeing those nurses inspired her to become one herself.

“They were people that as a child you trust. They give confidence to your family, hope and compassion to your family,” Rogers said.

She added, “When you’re a kid, you look up to a lot of people that you want to become when you grow up, and nurses were the people in my life that I thought I’d want to become. I’ve always been drawn to being in a caring role.”

The Catholic atmosphere at Catholic University led her to attending the nursing school there, where she was a Conway Scholar.

Rogers noted how the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception adjoins the CUA campus, the Dominican House of Studies is across the street, and the Franciscan Monastery and several convents are nearby. “People call it a miniature Vatican,” she said.

“Catholic University is a place where it’s normal to see someone in a habit walking around praying the rosary,” said Rogers, a 2019 graduate of Seton School in Manassas. “This morning on a walk, I saw a Dominican stopping at every statue of Mary praying the rosary. I thought, ‘How beautiful this is where I go to school.’”

She and her friend and fellow nursing student Whitney Paulson both served in the Catholic Values Initiative in CUA’s student government. Rogers was the director and Paulson was the associate director for that initiative, part of a team of seven students who worked with the university’s campus ministry office to foster the Catholic faith on campus. The group hosted Eucharistic Adoration on campus, with students taking daytime and nighttime shifts for those devotions held at chapels there. The group also assisted with a conference run by FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students.

Reflecting on her clinical experiences as a student in the Conway School of Nursing, Rogers noted, “I had several at Inova Fairfax Hospital where I’m going to work after graduation.” Her clinicals there included working in a mental health unit, a substance abuse unit, an obstetrics unit, and also accompanying medical-surgical nurses providing care to a variety of patients.

“I really learned a lot about everything a nurse does in a day,” she said, adding that in clinicals, “a lot of it is observation and having someone mentoring you in practicing the skills.”

Something else really struck her in clinicals, she said.

“I think encountering a patient in person in a religious sense, that’s really seeing Christ in a person,” Rogers said.

Describing what it was like as a nursing student waking up tired early in the morning, she said, “The moment you step in a patient’s room and see them, you get to be with them in the most vulnerable moments of their lives, when they’re alone, they’re scared, when they’re sick. I think I really learned the most… just about really encountering the person, and the gifts and the strength and the grace it really takes to work in the field of nursing.”

During the spring semester of her freshman year and during her sophomore year, Rogers and members of her class at the nursing school took online classes because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It definitely made me appreciate the value of life, even something as small as human interaction,” she said. “When something like that happens, you’re forced to reprioritize what is important… In that sense, it made me think more seriously about what I was doing, and if nursing was what I wanted to do. Seeing people I could look up to who were continuing to work was certainly a big motivator.”

Rogers said that while the academic work and training was rigorous, what struck her about the Conway School of Nursing was “everyone has so much dedication to be where they’re at. You can’t graduate from nursing school without professors being dedicated to their students, and the students being dedicated to this passion and their studies. You wake up early for clinicals, and you wake up early for class.”

That dedication is vital, she said, because “people’s lives will be in our hands.”

After graduation, Rogers will work as a float pool nurse at Inova Fairfax Hospital. “They’ll train me on several units, wherever there is a need,” she said.

In the future, she’s interested in serving as a nurse in oncology and wound care, and perhaps ultimately becoming a family nurse practitioner.

“My goal as a nurse is to learn more about God through my work, and bring the gifts that I have and share them with others… and really just encounter people,” Rogers said.

Nurses as the first line of defense

Like her fellow students at the Conway School of Nursing at Catholic University, rising senior Imani Lipscomb from Queens, New York, has had varied clinical experiences.

Her clinicals have included a mental health rotation at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, and a medical-surgical nursing rotation at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, where she also worked in the cardiac care unit. This summer, she’ll work in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at George Washington University Hospital.

“I enjoy going to clinicals, talking to nurses about how they got there, what they enjoy about the job, and tips they have,” Lipscomb said, adding those experiences help her “see what life is like on the other side.”

The 22-year-old, who is a member of St. Clare Parish in the Rosedale neighborhood in Queens, said attending the nursing school at Catholic University has provided her with “a safe space to grow.” She said the Conway School of Nursing community has been welcoming, and she has appreciated the support of her fellow students. “We only made it through nursing school this far because we looked out for each other,” she said.

Lipscomb said she was drawn to nursing school because “I wanted to help people on my feet. I appreciate that nurses are the first line of defense to help people at their most vulnerable moments.”

Reflecting on her upcoming senior year there, Lipscomb said, “I’m excited, the finish line is there.”

After graduation, she is interested in working in pediatric nursing or women’s health. Her future goals are centered on caring for her patients. “Even in a week if they don’t remember my name, I hope they leave the hospital feeling safe and cared for and listened to,” she said.

Healing the mind, body and spirit

The inspiration to become a nurse originated close to home for Zachary Brotzman, a graduating senior in the Conway School of Nursing’s class of 2023 at Catholic University.

The 22-year-old resident of Hanover, Maryland, was inspired by the example of his mother, Yvonne Brotzman, an ultrasound technician who has provided sonograms to patients in health care facilities and as a volunteer at a pro-life pregnancy center.

“She just treats all her patients with such compassion and such grace, and I wanted to be like her in every single way,” he said.

But he knew that work wasn’t his calling. Instead, he was drawn to nursing. “You take care of the mind, the body and the spirit as a nurse,” Zachary Brotzman said.

That led the member of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in east Baltimore to apply to Catholic University, but he also looked at nursing programs at secular universities. Then he got a call that he had been named a Conway Scholar at Catholic University and would receive a full scholarship to the nursing school there.

“I knew this was a sign from God this was where I was supposed to be,” Brotzman said. “I prayed for God to show me what the right path was.”

As a student in CUA’s Conway School of Nursing, his clinical experiences included working at a cardiac unit at Inova Alexandria Hospital.

“I learned to not be afraid… These patients are in the most vulnerable state of their lives and probably the sickest they’ve ever been… To just be present and to just be there to care for them means all the world,” he said.

His favorite clinical experience as a nursing student happened when he served in a pediatric rotation at Inova Fairfax Hospital, and that inspired him to serve in pediatric nursing, taking care of children and their families.

This spring, Brotzman’s senior practicum involved serving in a post-surgical cardiac care unit at Washington Hospital Center. “You can never stop learning. I’m in the last semester of senior year… (and) I’m still learning so much, and I’ll never stop learning,” he said. 

Brotzman said that as a nurse when “you keep learning and growing, you become the person God wants you to be, through knowledge, through experience and through caring for other people.”

The nursing student said the dedication of health care providers during the COVID-19 pandemic as they carried out their work, made him “want to join their ranks and support them and work with them.”

“It just affirmed that I was making the right choice” in a career, he said.

While studying in CUA’s Conway School of Nursing, Brotzman participated in its Certificate in Spanish for Health Care Program. 

He drew on that knowledge when he did an internship as a junior with Mercy Health Clinic in Gaithersburg, which serves many Hispanic patients.

“It was such an amazing experience to see the care that these people were giving to a population that was in such need,” he said.

Communicating with patients in their own language “is everything,” Brotzman said. 

During his pediatric clinical rotation at Inova Fairfax Hospital, he saw a Hispanic mother of a four-month-old baby with Down syndrome and a cardiac defect. He asked her in Spanish, “Como se’ siente, Mama?” which translates as “How are you doing, Mom?” The mother, who had been on the verge of tears, responded that nobody had asked her that.

“My goal as a nurse is to provide people with more moments like that,” Brotzman said.

He noted that he graduated from Mount Saint Joseph, a high school sponsored by the Xaverian Brothers in Baltimore.

“The Xaverian Brothers have a saying (that emphasizes) finding God in the simple, ordinary flow of everyday life. That’s what I want to be, and the best way I can do that is as a nurse,” he said.

After graduation, Brotzman will be working as a nurse in a pediatric cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore.

As his pinning ceremony and graduation from the Conway School of Nursing approached, Brotzman said, “I’m just so thankful. I’m thankful to the Lord for guiding me through these past four years. I’m thankful to all of my friends for supporting me and allowing me to be the man I am today, and I’m thankful to the faculty and staff of the school of nursing. They shaped my mind and they shaped my heart in little ways and big ways, and they shaped my faith in God’s healing work in the world.”

Treating patients like family 

When Margaret Schiavone was a student at Notre Dame Preparatory School in Towson, Maryland, an anatomy class where she learned about the body and how it works inspired her to want to work in the medical field.

Schiavone, a member of the class of 2023 at the Conway School of Nursing at Catholic University, was ultimately drawn to nursing.

“It really came down to patient interaction for me. I’m a people person,” she said. “I love to talk with people and hear their stories. I have a good amount of empathy and care for those in need.”

The 22-year-old smiled and noted that her home parish in Bel Air “is called St. Margaret, ironically.” Being Catholic, she said “the faith element was hugely important to me” in choosing a nursing school, and she wanted to learn in a highly regarded program that was smaller in size compared to other schools, so she could have a closer relationship with her teachers.

After prayer, she ultimately chose to attend the nursing school at Catholic University, and later she was named a Conway Scholar there, receiving a full scholarship.

“Trusting God is how I got here,” Schiavone said.

At Catholic University, Schiavone served as president of the Student Nurses’ Association, leading the 253 student nurses there in activities like American Red Cross blood drives, and a mentoring program that pairs nursing students with peers.

As a CUA nursing student, her clinical experiences included a practicum at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, serving one-on-one with a nurse in an advanced heart failure unit.

Schiavone also did obstetrics clinicals at Inova Fairfax Hospital, working in labor and delivery rotations with mothers and babies, and she also had clinicals at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington.

“I followed nurses (as they did) day-to-day tasks. You’re learning basically how to be a nurse in clinical opportunities,” she said.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, she got to interact with patients hooked up to external machines to pump their hearts. “It was a most incredible experience talking to these patients… I heard a lot of stories about their lives,” Schiavone said.

Those one-to-one interactions gave her experience “in how to communicate with patients in an empathetic way. You can be there for them,” she said.

In addition to their classwork and clinicals, CUA nursing students also participate in simulation labs, where they work with mannequins to build up their skills in doing things like injections, IV insertions and wound care.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, after taking online classes in the fall semester of her sophomore year, Schiavone and her classmates returned to campus the next spring. She said even though they were all still wearing facemasks as a safety precaution, “It was wonderful to see everyone again.” 

As a future caregiver, one thing she learned during the pandemic, she said, was “you don’t know how important a smile is, until it’s not there anymore,” and when wearing masks, “smiling with your eyes” is important for patients, as is simply touching or holding their hand.

As her May 11 pinning ceremony at the Conway School of Nursing and her May 13 graduation at the university approached, Schiavone said it was a surreal feeling that her journey as an undergraduate student was nearing an end. The nursing pin, she said, would serve as a reminder of the four years of hard work that her degree required, and also a reminder of how to care for each patient.

“At Catholic, they teach you to really treat every patient with dignity, like they’re your family member or your loved one,” Schiavone said.

When she begins serving as a nurse, Schiavone said her Catholic faith will remain central to her life and work.

“Your faith is your foundation for everything you do,” she said, adding that faith can be a source of strength for nurses facing challenging situations. “Having faith and a prayerful life will be that rock for you at the end of the day.”

Bringing joy and hope to patients

Whitney Paulson always knew she wanted to go into medicine as a career.

The 21-year-old from Traverse City, Michigan, who was a junior in the Conway School of Nursing at Catholic University during the 2022-23 school year, noted, “My dad is a dentist. My mom and my grandma are biology teachers. I always had this science in me.”

By the end of her senior year at St. Francis High School in Traverse City, “I knew I was called to nursing. I knew that’s what I wanted to do with my life,” Paulson said.

In the summer of 2021, she worked as a nursing assistant at a hospital in that city. “I got to see firsthand how nurses interact with patients, and what their role is in patient care It’s something very unique and special. They have a very personal relationship with their patients… It’s really cool to see that trust between people,” she said, noting how nurses also help patients with activities for daily living.

Paulson said she was drawn to the CUA nursing school because of “the Catholic  identity of the university, and how they infuse the faith in everything they do.” She added, “I wanted to have the resources and be able to practice my faith in an academic setting as a student, not just on the outside by going to Mass when I wanted to, but also being able to express my Catholic values and ideas in a classroom setting.”

She began college in her freshman year during the COVID-19 pandemic. Freshmen attended classes on campus, wearing facemasks and practicing social distancing, and upper classmen initially took classes online before beginning to return to in-person learning that next spring semester.

The pandemic, she said, underscored for her that “every human being is made in the image and likeness of God,” and that those who were becoming sick and dying from COVID “are people, and people deserve to be loved and cared for.” 

At Catholic University, Paulson was a leader in the Catholic Values Initiative in student government, working with fellow students and campus ministry officials to foster the Catholic faith there.

During her studies at Conway School of Nursing, Paulson did a community health clinical rotation at Mercy Health Clinic in Gaithersburg, Maryland; a mental health clinical rotation at Virginia Hospital Center; and did a medical-surgical nursing clinical at Inova Alexandria Hospital.

Those experiences, she said, showed her “what makes a nurse a nurse.” She said the role of a nurse is different from any other medical professional, and she learned the importance of communication skills and building trust with patients.

“You realize how truly important the role of a nurse is,” Paulson said.

Paulson said one key takeaway for her as a student at the Conway School of Nursing is “you can be Catholic and be a nurse. I look at the world today, especially in health care, it can be scary going out into the world and being someone who practices your Catholic faith.”

She said it was life-changing for her to have professors in her nursing school who are Catholic. “You’re sitting there (thinking), ‘They did it, so I can do it, too,’” Paulson said, adding that she appreciated how her teachers there “really emphasize the dignity of the human person in your care.”

Paulson also noted, “We have professors who do everything,” who have served as nurses in the military, who are still practicing nurses, who are nurse practitioners, or who have gone on to get advanced degrees.

“Almost all our professors are married and have families with children. They’re still coming here to teach us, and they’ve gone back for more education. They show that if you want to do this, you can do it, and do it in the way you want to do it,” she said. “Our professors are fantastic role models.”

This summer, Paulson will be doing a nursing externship at a cancer research hospital at The Ohio State University, where her grandfather played football for the legendary coach Woody Hayes. “I’m going back home,” she said smiling, noting that even though she grew up in rival Michigan, “my roots are in Ohio.”

For the future, she is interested in perhaps one day becoming a nurse practitioner. “Right now I want to go into pediatric oncology,” she said.

Reflecting on the impact of her Catholic education at the Conway School of Nursing, Paulson said, “The call that we have to be joyful in all that we do is so powerful, especially in a healthcare setting.”

She noted that in a hospital, nurses might be encountering someone at one of the lowest points in their life.

“You need something or someone to bring you hope,” she said, adding that is one of the reasons she wants to work in oncology and serve patients with illnesses like cancer, to bring that sense of joy and hope to the people she’s serving. “God calls us to be both those things,” she said.

Excited to start nursing

The loss of a childhood friend helped lead Grace St. Pierre to want to work in health care.

“A close family friend passed when we were both 8 of a rare brain cancer. I was drawn to helping people,” said the 22-year-old New Jersey resident who graduated from Catholic University’s Conway School of Nursing on May 13.

As a student during the COVID-19 pandemic, she admired how nurses, like other health care providers, continued serving their patients in a challenging time. “It kind of reassured me this is what I wanted to do,” she said.

While in CUA’s nursing school, she earned a Spanish for Health Care Certificate. “It’s such a great certificate program,” she said, noting it requires the completion of five courses in Spanish.

Her clinical experiences as a nursing student included serving at Inova Fairfax Hospital and Children’s National Hospital, and she said she appreciated making connections with the clinical instructors who became mentors to her.

After graduation, she will be working as a nurse in a pediatric intensive care unit at Penn State Health Children’s Hospital in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

“I’m very excited,” Grace St. Pierre said. “I’ve always wanted to care for the most vulnerable and the sickest of the sick. I love kids and babies. It’s something I’ve been very passionate about. I’m excited to get my feet on the ground and help those who need help the most.”