Nurse of the Week: Judith Hoover Says Passion for International Nursing Offers “Good Perspective Check”

Judith Hoover is an international nurse from Stark County, OH where she works as a nurse manager at Pregnancy Choices when she isn’t serving on relief missions with Samaritan’s Purse. Working on-call as a member of the Samaritan’s Purse Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), she might have to leave at a moment’s notice to use her passion and skills for international nursing to help some of the world’s most desperate people.

Hoover has been involved in international nursing since her graduation from Kent State University in 2009. Two years ago, she spent three months serving in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak. She has also served on missions in Bolivia, Guatemala, and West Africa. Her most recent mission was a three-week assignment in Haiti which she was notified about less than 24 hours before she left.

Following the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew which struck Haiti in October and killed more than 900, Hoover and the rest of her response team ventured into hard-to-reach regions of the country to treat victims of cholera. Over 9,000 people in Haiti died from cholera after a 2010 earthquake. Food and living conditions aren’t always ideal for international nurses like Hoover who travel to poor and disaster-struck regions of the world, but she says it offers a “good perspective check.”

In an interview with CantonRep.com, Hoover said “You can’t fix the world, but for that one person, you can make a difference. You have to focus on the lives you can change instead of the ones you can’t.” This is a statement all international and travel nurses know to be true. Thank you to our Nurse of the Week, Judith Hoover, for your dedication to the field of international nursing and the passion you have for helping make the world a safer and healthier place one person at a time.