{"id":63148,"date":"2010-05-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-administrators-pregnancy-opened-eyes-to-nursing-degree\/"},"modified":"2010-05-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-14T00:00:00","slug":"uri-administrators-pregnancy-opened-eyes-to-nursing-degree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2010\/05\/uri-administrators-pregnancy-opened-eyes-to-nursing-degree\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 administrator\u2019s pregnancy opened eyes to nursing degree"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t溏心vlog免费B站 National Student Exchange coordinator to earn bachelor\u2019s degree<\/p>\n


\n\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 14, 2010 \u2013 Donna Figueroa began thinking about pursuing a nursing degree when she was pregnant with her son Gianni, who is now 11 years old.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI loved everything about my pregnancy, and I had a great nurse-midwife,\u201d Figueroa said. \u201cAs I observed the midwives, I realized this was what I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\t She will take her first step toward her goal of becoming a midwife when she earns her bachelor\u2019s degree in nursing from the 溏心vlog免费B站 May 23. <\/p>\n


\nFor the past 11 years, the Cranston resident has juggled her classes and clinical commitments with her job as assistant director in the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Office of International Education and National Student Exchange, a position she has held since 1992. <\/p>\n


\n\tEven though she earned her bachelor\u2019s degree in international studies from The American University at a traditional age and later a master\u2019s degree in international administration from World Learning\u2019s School for International Training, Figueroa said she would not have made it as a young student in nursing.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI admire the young undergraduate students who go through this program with a lot less experience than I have,\u201d Figueroa said. \u201cThere is no group of students more mature than nursing students by their senior year. By that time, they are fully functioning nurses. In those roles, they are at the bedside when a patient is giving birth, dying, recovering from surgery and dealing with chronic illness and pain.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAs Figueroa pursued her nursing degree, her son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as a 4-year-old, her mother died and her father was diagnosed with lymphoma.

\n\t\u201cThere were a lot of challenges, but I kept getting back on the horse,\u201d Figueroa said.<\/p>\n


\n\tShe acknowledges that great support from her family, the 溏心vlog免费B站 faculty, classmates and colleagues in her office was critical.<\/p>\n


\n\tHector, her husband of 17 years, was tops among them. \u201cMy husband has been great. I couldn\u2019t have done it without him. He\u2019s been putting our son on the bus and doing all the other things that allowed me to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tShe also credits the late Ruth Waldman, the former associate dean of nursing, with helping her progress. \u201cIf it weren\u2019t for Ruth, I would not have made it. She was so encouraging. When I began the program, I asked her if this was doable. With a young child, family responsibilities and a job, I was half hoping she would say it wasn\u2019t. The faculty was also very supportive.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tFigueroa credits University College Dean Jayne Richmond and her direct supervisor, Dania Brandford-Calvo, director of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019S Office of International Education, with allowing her to reduce her regular full-time schedule to 3-and-a-half days a week.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThat was important because clinical experiences are 8 hours a day, and that doesn\u2019t even count travel time. This also gave me time to study and spend a little time with my family.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tFigueroa will now return to a full-time schedule at a job she loves. \u201cI love working with the students, but I want to pursue something else. Even if I never use my nursing education directly, I am so much richer for the experience.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tA former Fulbright Scholarship winner under the International Education Administrators Program who studied in South Korea in June 1996, Figueroa has a wide range of clinical nursing experience.<\/p>\n


\n\tAmong her placements were Tollgate OB\/GYN, South County Hospital\u2019s Women\u2019s Care Unit, Hasbro Children\u2019s Hospital, Hope High School-Based Health Care Clinic and Roger Williams Medical Center\u2019s Orthopedic and Neurosurgical Unit.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cOne of the big reasons I am trying to move into health care is I want to address wellness and lifestyle issues,\u201d Figueroa said. \u201cOne of my role models is (Associate Professor) Diane Martins, a community nursing specialist who does a lot of work outside the hospitals, especially with the homeless. Some students come into the program thinking nursing is only about the hospitals, but there is so much more\u2014prevention, wellness, education. Society is really not taking advantage of how diverse nursing is. I see myself some day as a program manager in health promotion.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tBut for now, Figueroa is planning for a family celebration May 23. \u201cMy husband, son and father will be at the pinning ceremony and graduation. They have all been so understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nPictured above

\nDonna Figueroa\t

\n溏心vlog免费B站 Department of Communications & Marketing photo by Michael Salerno Photography.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

溏心vlog免费B站 National Student Exchange coordinator to earn bachelor\u2019s degree KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 14, 2010 \u2013 Donna Figueroa began thinking about pursuing a nursing degree when she was pregnant with her son Gianni, who is now 11 years old. \u201cI loved everything about my pregnancy, and I had a great nurse-midwife,\u201d Figueroa said. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}