{"id":64279,"date":"2008-12-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/former-air-force-movie-man-earns-nursing-degree-at-64\/"},"modified":"2008-12-22T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-22T00:00:00","slug":"former-air-force-movie-man-earns-nursing-degree-at-64","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2008\/12\/former-air-force-movie-man-earns-nursing-degree-at-64\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Air Force movie man earns nursing degree at 64"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tWesterly resident selected student speaker for 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s December ceremonies<\/p>\n


\nKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 December 22, 2008 — It wasn\u2019t until J.R. Fowler cared for a family member\u2014his mother-in-law, a psychiatric nurse\u2014that he was inspired to return to his youthful dream of a career in health care.<\/p>\n


\nWhile Fowler was in high school he had dreams of getting into the medical field but he followed a different path. He graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in journalism. Degree in hand, he went into the Air Force where he spent the next 20 years; during that time he acquired a master\u2019s degree in public administration. He served his last assignment in Los Angeles as liaison for the motion picture and TV industry working on Top Gun, Running Man and The Right Stuff. As soon as he retired, he and his wife moved to the Monterey Peninsula in California where he began work for the Carmel Bach Festival.<\/p>\n


\nWhile working for the festival, Fowler and his wife, author\/illustrator Leslie Tryon, became the primary caretakers for Tryon\u2019s mother who lived with them for the last eight years of her life.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cYou\u2019re really good at nursing,\u201d she\u2019d say, \u201cYou might consider it as a new career.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nFowler said he learned a great deal from the experience of caring for his mother-in-law; \u201cIt was her kind, inspiring words that made that high school lightbulb begin to glow again.\u201d He revisited that old dream of a career in health care.<\/p>\n


\nThe move from California to Rhode Island was a natural one since Tryon\u2019s entire family can be found in New England. Fowler settled into Westerly, thanks to cousins who had lived in that community for years. Soon after he moved to Westerly he was accepted to the 溏心vlog免费B站 College of Nursing. <\/p>\n


\n When asked why he chose to pursue a degree at his age, he said, \u201cA friend of mine who also got into nursing later in his life had always said it is a challenging and most rewarding job. And, as for my age, the field of nursing doesn\u2019t present insurmountable age and gender bias.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nAt 溏心vlog免费B站, Fowler said he has received a great deal of acceptance, support and encouragement from everyone at the University.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI was treated as an equal among the 溏心vlog免费B站 students which is what makes it neat,\u201d said Fowler.<\/p>\n


\nBut it was sometimes a different story when doing clinicals in a hospital; patients treated him differently than the other nursing students. \u201cThey sometimes thought I was the doctor, but I always corrected their misperceptions,\u201d Fowler said. \u201cThey would ask me why I wanted to be a nurse, and it served as a nice icebreaker.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nFaculty and students alike are fond of J.R. \u201c I think he realizes that he gets our support,\u201d said Tara Johnson, fellow December graduate. \u201c He always says about my girlfriends and me, \u2018Without you, I wouldn\u2019t have made it.\u2019 He has a sense of camaraderie with us.\u201c<\/p>\n


\nMary Lavin, associate clinical professor of nursing, said Fowler was supportive of his student colleagues. \u201cHis wisdom and ability to listen were so valuable. Older students add a breadth of knowledge from their experiences, and young students offer energy and enthusiasm. Our younger students look up to someone like J.R. because he gives them confidence to succeed. He is always interested in people,\u201d Lavin said.<\/p>\n


\nAt the College\u2019s pinning ceremony in December he had a position of honor. When it came time to vote for the student speaker earlier in the semester, the choice was obvious. \u201cWe didn\u2019t even need a formal ballot,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt was a unanimous nomination and J.R. was floored.\u201d <\/p>\n


\n\u201cMy overall reaction was one of surprise, wonder and pleasure at being selected,\u201d Fowler said. \u201cI recognized that this was a singular honor and not to be taken lightly. A little while later, I also understood that this was going to be as challenging as any of my other finals for this semester.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nFowler concluded by saying that his 溏心vlog免费B站 experience was challenging and rewarding and has given the greatest confidence that \u201cI am entering the field of nursing with the best foundation I could hope for. I owe that to this University.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nPictured above

\nNEW GRADUATE: J.R. Fowler of Westerly, poses in the Memorial Union after picking up his cap and gown for his pinning ceremonies as a new graduate of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s College of Nursing. 溏心vlog免费B站 Department of Communications & Marketing photo by Michael Salerno Photography<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Westerly resident selected student speaker for 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s December ceremonies KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 December 22, 2008 — It wasn\u2019t until J.R. Fowler cared for a family member\u2014his mother-in-law, a psychiatric nurse\u2014that he was inspired to return to his youthful dream of a career in health care. While Fowler was in high school he had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64281,"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-64279","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\/64279","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=64279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}