On May 6, 24 Newman University Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) graduates participated in the 2021 Nurse Pinning Ceremony at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church.
Students Kirsten Adolph and Clare Morgan, both 2021 graduates, were volunteered by their classmates to lead the student address, which included a lighthearted segment, “How You Know You’re a Newman Nursing Student.”
Here is the original list Adolph and Morgan shared with their graduating nursing class:
- If you’ve ever made a 25-minute video of yourself in Birkenstocks and scrubs taking a JP drain out of a mannequin, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever worried you are having symptoms of a thyroid imbalance, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever flipped to the Risk for Falls nursing diagnosis so many times that your NANDA textbook just naturally falls open to it now, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever wondered if Professor Hopper would tell you to use more lube on a suppository, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever worried you may be kicked out of school because you accidentally left clinicals with 40 alcohol prep pads in your pocket, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever suffered from chronic back pain because your med-surg textbook weighs 11 pounds, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever stayed up until midnight the night before clinicals because you forgot to wash your scrubs, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever read the same Chapter 13 over and over, like it was your favorite bedtime story, and it still wasn’t enough, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever gotten into your car after a long day of clinicals, leaned your head on the steering wheel, and heard Professor Siple’s voice in your head say, “We have a big God, He can handle our big questions,” you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever lied and told Professor Strickert you went to bed at 10 p.m. just so she wouldn’t be disappointed in you because you actually never went to sleep, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever been drawing up insulin at clinicals and broke out into a cold sweat because the bubble won’t move and you just know that somewhere, Professor Sherman knows you’re not tapping it enough, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever texted the group chat at 2 a.m. because you’re trying to finish a paper and you forgot what Dr. Lugo-Baez specifically told you not to cite, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever realized, 75 hours into your capstone, that you’re basically just free quality labor at this point, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever grown an entire mustache under your mask and not told any of your friends for months, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever pretended to be intently taking notes so that Dr. Romaneschi won’t call on you to explain the refractory stage of shock, you may be a Newman nursing student.
- If you’ve ever made it to the end of nursing school and realized that you were so busy studying, writing papers and keeping up with everything that you forgot to look at the people around you and be grateful for every class you took, every opportunity you had, every friend you made, you may be a Newman nursing student.
Throughout the rest of their speech, both Morgan and Adolph reflected on how grateful they were for the professors in the nursing program.
“This gratitude begins with 12 incredible women, without whom we would not be here,” Morgan says. “Every step we have taken over the past two years to get to this moment was guided and accompanied by at least one of our professors. I think it’s safe to say that they have become, for us, more than merely instructors. They are mentors, confidantes, role models and, soon, coworkers and friends.”
Adolph added that both peers and professors helped guide nursing students through every twist and turn.
“Nursing school was anything but straightforward,” she says. “Between class, clinicals, our personal lives, our own private struggles and the curveball of COVID, every day was an adventure. But one thing we were reminded of from the very beginning is that we were never alone.”
Adolph concluded the address by summing up the Newman nursing student experience.
“We’ve learned so many things throughout our time in nursing school,” she says. “Whether it be to ‘scrub the hub’ on an IV line or to keep a positive mental attitude, these are the things we will carry with us into our future as nurses. We have not only been taught the basics of nursing through countless lectures, but also how to simply be a good human being and genuinely care for the sick people that we have and will encounter.”
Journey to the nursing profession
For Clare Morgan, the road to becoming a nurse was guided by her desire to help others in a vulnerable spot in their lives meet their most basic needs. Throughout her experience at Newman, she says she felt invested in, cared for, valued and prepared to step forward into her professional practice.
“I have incredible respect and love for my professors, without whom I would never have thought learning and becoming so much would be possible,” she says.
Morgan is now a licensed registered nurse, and currently works in the intensive care unit at Kansas Heart Hospital. Her advice to aspiring nurses is to put themselves “at the bedside.”
“Every time you are questioning yourself or a piece of information, or studying for your next test, put yourself at the bedside and imagine what you would do and how you handle the situation. Remember that every patient is a person with a past and a future and a family.”
For Kirsten Adolph, nursing has been her passion since she was young, when she would run around family events with her mom’s stethoscope, listening to her family member’s hearts. She became a certified nurse’s aid in 2017 and has been caring for the elderly since. Adolph says that being part of the nursing program at Newman was “the best experience.”
“If I had to do it all over again, I would choose Newman nursing,” she says. “I loved all four of my years at Newman, and now I am a Jet alumni just like my mother and father.”
Adolph passed the NCLEX exam in June, which is the test for the licensing of nurses, and will start at Wesley Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in July. In the future, she plans to pursue her doctorate in nursing and become a nurse practitioner for neonates.
“I genuinely think that the Newman nursing program sets their graduates up for success. I feel that I am ready to go out into the hospital setting and begin caring for my patients — and I have all my great professors to thank!”
View the full video recording of the spring 2021 Nursing Pinning Ceremony, including Adolph and Morgan’s list of “How You Know You’re a Newman Nursing Student” on YouTube:
To find out more about the Newman nursing program, visit online or contact admissions at (316) 942-4242.
