It is not unusual for nursing and other healthcare professions to run in the family, but sometimes the connections that lead a new generation into nursing can be almost eerie.
Tara Wood, DNP, CRNP, NNP-BC was a NICU nurse when she gave birth to twins Jade and Taylor England. Her newborns weighed less than two pounds and spent their first 87 days in a NICU. At some point, it seems to have been written that at least one daughter was destined to return one day.
“We had central lines,” says Jade England, who is completing her BSN degree at the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Nursing. Both sisters have a permanent souvenir of the constant care they needed from birth: “We still have that scar from where they were placed. It’s just crazy to see that we have actual proof of what we’ve been through.”
That scar is the only physical reminder of their journey. England knows how lucky they are to not have any complications from being born prematurely. Growing up, she saw the pictures of their tiny bodies covered in sensors and tubes. When she decided to become a nurse, she knew she had to return to where her story started—the NICU.
“You have to have compassion for those babies. You just have to be called to do that,” England said. “I want to be able to be that nurse to let the parents know that I was in their child’s place. I just want to provide the best care possible and hopefully sharing my story will make a difference in their stay in the NICU. I don’t want to give them false hope, but I also want them to know that miracles happen.”
“She literally walked me around the entire unit and was telling everybody, ‘this is my baby, I took care of her and her sister.’”
Jade England graduated in April and now works at UAB Hospital in the Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Her mother, Tara Wood – who is a member of the faculty at UABSON hopes her daughter will be able to give families the comfort she remembered needing.
“They’re going to be told all the bad, but when you can see a living example of success, I think it’s going to be amazing. I can’t wait to see what she does,” Wood said.
England will be working with one of the nurse practitioners who cared for her at the hospital where she was born. During her clinical at UAB, they made the connection.
“She literally walked me around the entire unit and was telling everybody, ‘this is my baby, I took care of her and her sister,’” England said.
“I think I found healing by helping others.”
Wood remembers not being able to hold her children for months. During that time, her lifeline to her girls was the nurses and nurse practitioners.
“My world was rocked,” Wood said. “My babies were really sick. Both of the girls were on the ventilator for weeks. Their organs were premature, and you’re faced with all the things that can go wrong. Just knowing that every minute mattered, it really put you in a constant state of terror and panic, of not really knowing how your babies are going to survive, much less thrive.”
She had planned on becoming a teacher, but the twins’ experience in the hospital changed her life. She realized she wanted to be a nurse so she could care for other families.
After working as a NICU nurse, Wood earned her Master of Science (MSN) in Nursing and Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) from the UAB School of Nursing. The journey came full circle for her as well. She’s now an Assistant Professor at the School and the Coordinator for the Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Specialty Track, teaching and preparing nurses to care for infants and families.
“Being a NICU mom 22 years ago we didn’t really talk about post-traumatic stress disorder and things like that that really lingered. I think I found healing by helping others,” Wood said.
Taylor England, Jade’s twin sister, also graduated from UAB this spring with a major in psychology with a minor in legal affairs and a certificate in mental health.
Jade wants to follow in her mother’s footsteps and plans to return to school next year to start the Post-BSN to DNP Nurse Practitioner Pathway to earn her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. One day, she hopes to teach alongside her mom.
“I’m a proud mom and I want to share them with the world because I think that they were born to do great things,” their mother says. “They have servants’ hearts, and they want to help and do good.”
The small town of Bemidji, Minnesota, may seem like it’s a world away from the scenes playing out every day in Ukraine. But at a Sanford Health walk-in clinic in Bemidji, one nurse knows firsthand that a war a continent away can be felt across an ocean.
Olha Finnelly is an LPN Ambulatory from Ukraine, and her family still lives in the city of Dnipro, about 250 miles southeast of Kyiv, the country’s capital. When the invasion of her home country started in late February, her life turned upside-down.
“I was just crying every day at work. I couldn’t believe that it was happening,” said Finnelly. “I never could imagine that the big brother, Russia, would just attack and start bombing and killing people. It’s not a war that’s happening somewhere in a foreign territory. It’s happening right by our homes.”
“We had to help”
Finnelly’s clinic co-workers noticed that their friend was in distress, and they asked her often about her family.
“She would make mention that she would talk to them from time to time, and then the sirens would go off in the background, and she’d have to get off of the phone and just wait until the next time that she was able to talk to them,” said Erin Petrowske, RN and Bemidji clinic supervisor.
Kim Schulz, a medical laboratory scientist at Sanford Bemidji, said they all knew Finnelly was from Ukraine.
“We’d ask ‘How’s your family?’ One day all of a sudden she wasn’t functioning so well. Very teary-eyed. She was trying to get them out (of Ukraine). When we all heard that, we had to help,” Schulz said. “So we did whatever we could to help her get the funds and anything else she needed.”
Getting out of Ukraine
As the war continued, Finnelly’s father and brother-in-law decided to stay in Ukraine and help in any way they could. But her mother, sister and 3-year-old niece prepared to leave their homes.
“They decided to take a train to go to Lviv, which is the biggest city on the Western part of Ukraine, closer to Poland,” said Finnelly.
They traveled 22 hours by train, sharing a room that was designed to sleep four at a time, with 16 people.
“They didn’t have any luggage with them,” Finnelly said. “The only belongings that they had were backpacks. They brought underpants for the little one. Some snacks, because you are not sure if you are able to get some food. And my sister was able to get her laptop because she is trying to keep her job working online.”
When that was done, they took a small bus to the Polish border, eventually making it to Krakow. Luckily for the family, they had been planning on visiting Olha in the near future, so they already had approved U.S. travel visas from before the war began. Finnelly booked them plane tickets to Minneapolis. The cost: roughly $3,000, all raised by her co-workers. After five days of travel, Finnelly’s family arrived in the United States.
“We were all on pins and needles waiting for the final word from her that everybody was safe,” said Petrowske. “And then when we saw that picture of her and her mom and her sister and her niece, and just the look of relief in her eyes, it was so amazing.”
“Everyone jumped in and tried to help her. And we helped. We got the women out,” said Schulz.
Together again
“Right now I’m smiling because yes, I understand how stressful it still is in Ukraine — and it’s little bit selfish — but the most important three people in my life, they’re right here around the table,” said Finnelly.
Finnelly’s mother Liana Taradaiko, her sister Ksusha Zarubina, and her niece, Masha Zarubina, have been in Bemidji for a few weeks now. Taradaiko cooks food for the family, and has made pierogi for the staff at the Bemidji clinic. Zarubina works each day starting around 3 a.m. to keep her job and stay on Ukrainian time. And Masha? Well, Masha plays with Play-Doh, paints at the dining room table, and dances like a 3-year-old, wearing some of the clothes that have also been donated by Finnelly’s co-workers.
“In our Ukrainian language, we have this saying. ‘Tell me who is your friend, and I can tell you who you are.’ So I’m just so happy with my colleagues. (The) Sanford family in Bemidji … we are really like real family over here,” said Finnelly.
A war is being fought in Ukraine, but in one living room in Bemidji, Minnesota, USA, a family is smiling, happy to be together again.
Being a family nurse practitioner (FNP) can be a rewarding path for just about anyone who dreams of making a difference as a nurse. An FNP allows you to become a trusted primary care providerin most states and opens the door to a range of ongoing opportunities for learning and professional growth. And, if you want to do it all… or at least as much as possible, an FNP degree will give you maximum career flexibility. It can position you to create your ideal tailor-made nursing career, whether you want to work in a hospital or clinic setting—or both—while running your own business or pursuing research projects if you wish!
The heart of being an FNP, though, is of course family care… and here’s an overview of what a day in the life of an FNP entails.
Diagnosing a variety of medical conditions for patients of all ages
A family nurse practitioner can care for a wide age range of patients. An FNP may treat everyone from infants to geriatric persons, and this is just one of the reasons the job is almost always lively and interesting.
Am FNP might arrive at the clinic in the morning with or without an idea of their patient caseload on any given day. However, one thing they can count on is variety. You may start your morning with an annual physical of a 35-year-old, then pivot to managing hypertension and diabetes medications for a 71-year-old, before quickly peeking at another patient’s rash, and looking in another patient’s throat. While this may seem intimidating at first, family nurse practitioner certification ensures that you have the necessary breadth of medical acumen and will be prepared to manage whatever comes your way.
Creating treatment plans
After taking a medical history and performing a physical exam, an FNP will formulate a diagnosis for any given condition. Each day, they may use a variety of tools to arrive at their diagnoses—including cultures, blood work, imaging tests, and other medical diagnostics. After reaching a suspected or confirmed diagnosis, an FNP will work with each patient to create a treatment plan, which may include a lifestyle modification, a new medicine, a referral, or another kind of treatment.
Providing a lifetime of primary care
When family nurse practitioners serve as primary care providers, they identify and treat problems, and follow up to ensure the best possible health outcome for each patient. One of the most valuable aspects of being a family nurse practitioner is being able to follow patients throughout their lifespan, anticipating and addressing conditions across decades, and providing patient education.
Preparing for the Next Day
At the end of the day, an FNP may spend time reviewing messages in their electronic medical record inbox, and return phone calls from patients or pharmacies. They will need to catch up on documentation in some patient charts from earlier in the day, communicate with staff members, and make sure everyone on that patient’s team is receiving the assessments and care that they need.
Whether it’s nature or nurture, nursing is often a calling that runs in families and creates a special, additional family bond between parents and their offspring.
“I remember performing some Christmas programs and ballet recitals for the residents in the center,” says Rindels, now the Society’s vice president of nursing and clinical services.
Her mom, Nancy Van Dam, RN, spent nearly 40 years as a nurse at Luther Manor, and Rindels says “I grew up personally with Good Sam. We would eat lunch on the weekends that she worked. I volunteered in the center several times.”
Van Dam retired in 2017. If she would’ve waited a few years, her daughter would have been her boss.
“I think Good Sam is in good hands. I think she’s very innovative and wants to learn and really enjoys trying to get everybody up to the best standard of care,” Van Dam says.
“Fell in love” with nursing
Nancy Van Dam, RN tears up as she recalls singing with a patient as they passed on.
Van Dam and Rindels both started out as certified nursing assistants.
“Fell in love with it. I would find myself listening to the nurses giving reports and thought, I could do that. It was so interesting. So, then I went to nurses training. In fact, I graduated from Sioux Valley Hospital School of Nursing,” Van Dam says.
A calling to work in long-term care brought her to the skilled nursing facility in 1978. She never left.
“I love the wisdom of the elderly. The chance that you get to make relationships that last,” Van Dam says about serving in a nursing home as opposed to working in a hospital.
Raised in a Christian home, she appreciates the faith-based mission of the Society.
“It’s not about profits and it’s not about names or fame or anything like that. It’s about caring for people and trying to do God’s will for them,” Van Dam says.
Getting to know residents and their families was her favorite part. Even when times were tough, Van Dam believed she was fulfilling a calling. One of her most vivid memories is caring for a resident who was nearing the end.
“We got her settled in bed and the other staff left. I just sat there with her and held her hand. I started singing ‘Jesus Loves Me’ to her. It always makes me tear up,” Van Dam says as she wipes her eyes. “She started singing with me and she was so short of breath. But that was something she remembered and it comforted her. She died later that day but I thought, I made a difference,” Van Dam says.
“Continuing this from one generation to the next”
Always proud of her mother’s efforts, Rindels didn’t know if nursing would be in her future.
“I think in high school, I don’t know that I thought much about being a nurse,” Rindels says.
Along with a passion for learning and science, her interest in the human body and how it works drew her closer to the profession. Being around the Society her whole life also helped inspire her to pursue a career in care.
“The meaning of family and the inclusion of family at the Society,” Rindels says played a big role in her career choice.
Seeing firsthand the impact a nurse can make, she went from a CNA to a licensed practical nurse at a long-term care location. Since then, she’s advanced through progressive nursing degrees.
“It’s almost like a legacy maybe, or tradition almost, that we’re continuing this from one generation to the next and able to build on very strong history and nursing practice that I was raised in,” Rindels says.
Technology improving future care
While she’s been at the Society for four years, Rindels has been a part of Sanford Health for 13. She thinks the integrated health system will provide many new opportunities in the future.
“We’ll be able to strengthen our nursing practice through new wound technology, the telehealth piece, being able to have a provider’s eyes on a resident immediately, especially in the rural setting that we’re in,” Rindels says.
Van Dam says connecting doctors with residents from the comfort of their own home was just starting when she retired.
“Saves a whole trip out. Your person isn’t feeling good. Why do you want to put them in something and travel them somewhere?” Van Dam says.
She adds another advantage will be seamless communication between long-term care nurses and the residents’ healthcare providers.
“You’re going to have the same people talking to each other at the same time. It will be a wonderful thing,” Van Dam says.
Rindels says advancements in virtual doctor visits, “will only strengthen our service and care in the future.”
“Build on that foundation”
As the Society approaches 100 years, technology and talented clinical care teams are enhancing the level of care that can be done right at the building.
Through the Great Plains Medicare Advantage plan, Rindels says some locations in the midwest are beginning to see nurse practitioners.
“We are adding in the mid-level nurse practitioners into the buildings five days a week or at least weekly. Visiting residents, providing care, giving that additional level of complexity and support to the nurses at the locations,” Rindels says.
Constantly learning and improving care for residents. Van Dam and now Rindels believe the Society’s past is rich and the future is bright.
Rindel’s personal goals are “to build on that foundation for the next 30 years.”
Charles Edward Fisher and his wife, Rosa Lee Fisher, had five children—two sons and three daughters. Theirs was an African-American family in the community of Freemanville, near Atmore, Alabama, in the mid-20th century. Given the times, they were aware of racial barriers to their children’s opportunities. However, that did not prevent the Fishers from having high expectations for their children and encouraging them to be the best they could be. Those expectations included that their children would graduate from high school and then pursue higher education. In their parents, the Fisher children had role models for working hard. Their dad worked as a janitor and later in production in a chemical plant. Their mom raised flowers for a plant-and-flower nursery.
Parental encouragement paid off. Four of the five Fisher children became college graduates and the fifth a trade school graduate.
For the Fisher daughters—Sarah, Cynthia and Eleanor—seeds also were planted for pursuing a nursing career. Their mom, Rosa, had wanted to become a nurse. But, as eldest daughter Sarah put it, “time and opportunity were not on our mother’s side.”
All three Fisher daughters would become nurses and would earn a nursing education grounded at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. As time went on, Rosa Lee Fisher would smile and say, “with all three of my daughters in nursing, if I get sick and need a nurse, I should be covered on all three shifts!”
Sarah Louise Fisher, Ph.D, MSN, RN
Sarah Louise Fisher, PhD, MSN, RN
In September 1965, Sarah Louise Fisher entered the baccalaureate program at what today is known as the UAB School of Nursing. The School then was based in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and, midway through Sarah’s studies, moved to its current Birmingham home as part of what would come to be UAB. Sarah was the first African-American student to be accepted to the School and, in 1969, the School’s first African-American graduate.
She later earned her master’s in nursing, an education specialist certificate and a PhD. All were from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, a city where she and her husband, Joe Giles, lived and reared their family. One of their three children, their son, is a nurse.
For Dr. Sarah Fisher Giles, innovation became a way of life. She was among the first nursing faculty at Wayne County Community College in Detroit and was innovative with curricula to educate nursing students. After retiring from a long career there, she became the founding director of a nursing education department for South University in Novi, Michigan. She also was in the Army Reserves and became a full colonel. In 2001, she was in the first group of distinguished nurses inducted into the Alabama Nursing Hall of Fame.
“I am pleased that I was able to achieve my goals,” she said. “My baccalaureate nursing education from the UAB School of Nursing provided me with a strong foundation.”
She now lives in Georgia and spends her time volunteering to care for people in her church and in the community.
Cynthia Fisher Frazier, BSN, MSN, RN, MS Ed.
Cynthia Fisher Frazier, BSN, MSN, RN, MS Ed.
Cynthia Fisher Frazier is the middle of the Fisher daughters. Like her sisters, she has a life strongly grounded in nursing. She holds three degrees from UAB—a bachelor’s in nursing, a master’s in nursing, and a master’s in occupational education.
For more than 30 years, she worked at the Birmingham Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center and rose to positions of leadership. She worked as a nurse manager for four areas—dialysis, IV therapy/phlebotomy, medical specialty clinics and chemotherapy. Her nursing leadership has attracted accolades, including an Excellence in Nursing Award from B-Metro Magazine. The impact of her role modeling is apparent in her own family; one of her two daughters is a nurse.
Cynthia Fisher Frazier recalled being exposed to nursing ideals of high-quality care while she was a UAB baccalaureate and master’s nursing student.
“As a student at the UAB School of Nursing, I saw that the School’s standards were high and that the School did not compromise on those standards.”
Nursing ideals she came to know at UAB continue to guide her today.
“In regard to patient care, through the years I have believed in not compromising values and principles, and in maintaining that expected standard of care in whatever area of nursing you are delivering for patients,” she said. “For me, I believe that understanding and adhering to a high standard of care go back to what I learned at the UAB School of Nursing.”
That dedication to care for patients continued into retirement. When the need arose during the COVID-19 pandemic, she decided to go back to work to help administer vaccines to veterans.
Eleanor Fisher, BSN, MSN, RN, CRNA
Eleanor Fisher, BSN, MSN, RN, CRNA.
The youngest Fisher sister, Eleanor Fisher, pursued an education that led her to a rewarding career in nurse anesthesia.
Typical of the Fisher siblings’ quest for higher education, Eleanor built a strong educational base. She earned baccalaureate and master’s degrees from the UAB School of Nursing. From the UAB School of Health Professions, where the program was formerly housed, she received education in nurse anesthesia.
Eleanor Fisher makes her home in the Birmingham area. But, for this retired contract nurse anesthetist, her work took her into hospital operating rooms in towns and cities outside the area.
She speaks of lessons learned in nursing school. “As a student at the UAB School of Nursing, I learned from the strong emphasis on delivering quality care and being an advocate for your patients. I took those lessons with me.”
When she was involved in putting a patient under sedation for a procedure, Eleanor said she viewed herself as an advocate for making sure the patient receives the best quality of anesthesia services. She approaches her patients with nurturing akin to what she herself received from her own parents and in turn gives to her son.
“I treat each patient as an individual,” she said. “For example, if my patient is a baby, I want that baby’s parents to know that I will treat their baby as though it was my own being put to sleep for surgery.”
Like her sister, she also jumped at the opportunity to do her part during the pandemic. She helps in the process of administering COVID vaccines for children and adults.
There are some deliveries that are far beyond the abilities of USPS orPostmates.
Everyone knows that the old saw “any port in a storm” is a truism when a pregnant woman is in labor and trying to reach a hospital – but luckily, nurses are accustomed to serving at stormy ports.
On February 9, though, our Nurse of the Week, Public Health nurse Evelyn Davis RN, was still a little nonplussed when the grandmother of an expecting – imminently expecting – mom realized her daughter couldn’t wait a moment longer and swung into the parking lot at the Adamsville Regional Health Center in Fulton County, Georgia.
As the grandma imploringly flagged her down, Davis thought, “So this is a health center. You usually don’t show up here to deliver your baby!” However, although the Adamsville Regional HC is not in any way prepared for midwifery or deliveries, and Davis now specializes in caring for HIV/AIDS patients, the RN is a veteran nurse who delivered hundreds of babies on Hopi and Navaho reservations in Arizona earlier in her career.
Davis’ experience bringing all of those brand-new Hopi and Navaho infants into the world was fortuitous. The mother-to-be and grandmother were well into the “oh my gosh – it’s happening!! Help!” stage of a pending delivery, and soothing words from an experienced nurse were exactly what the mom needed.
“Lord! What are we gonna do?”
The ambiance of a parking lot at a downtown public health clinic bears little resemblance to a hospital labor and delivery unit. As Davis says, the situation was “chaotic.” She recalled that “There were people screaming, ‘She’s going to have the baby! Help her! Oh, Lord! What are we gonna do? This is not a hospital. She should not be here!’ So, I just asked everyone to calm down and got the mother to calm down.”
As the poor mother was frantic, Davis continued, “I introduced myself… because she was hysterical, understandably, and I calmed her down and let her know that we were here to help her. She was screaming trying to prevent the baby from coming and I told her not to do that because you’re gonna get a very strong contraction and that baby’s gonna fly out.” (Delightful as it might sound to a harried mom in labor, in general flight is not an optimal mode of exit from the womb).
Davis points to the ARHC’s new “ad hoc Delivery Entrance.”
As the mother began to understand that grandma had made the right call in pulling over into this particular parking lot, Nurse Davis pulled on gloves, and staffers inside the Center ran for supplies because this baby couldn’t wait. “I checked her,” Davis says, “and the baby was right there, and I knew it was a matter of one or two or three pushes and everything would happen.”
“Come on, baby! Breathe, breathe, breathe.”
In fact, more happened than any of the players had bargained for. As the newborn entered the world in front of the Adamsville Regional Health Center, there was a slight hiccup (of course the mother probably would not choose that phrase). Davis said that the actual birth came after a few pushes, but the baby girl who emerged had gray skin, and “She still wasn’t breathing, so we had her wrapped up. I started rubbing on her chest and I was like, ‘Come on, baby, breathe, breathe, breathe. Come on, take a breath, take a breath, baby.’ And I just rubbed the baby’s chest, and then she let out a scream.”
The mother and baby girl were taken to a nearby hospital for an examination and might not have realized just how fortunate they were. “I’m just glad we were all here to help,” Davis said, but observed, “Ten minutes later, this place would have been closed and no one would’ve been here…”
You can see a video interview with Evelyn Davis, RN here.
