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Nurse Camp opens UW doors for students
HANDS ON Above, Nurse Camp volunteer instructor Tammy Nguyen shows students how to gown up, while at right, Mare Unite prepares to try on a stethoscope as Czarina Butak (behind Mare) works with a reflex hammer tuning fork. Butak and Mare, who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in nursing, are Diversity Awareness Group (DAwGs) leaders.
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V I E W P O I N T : : U Wa l u m . c o m / v i e w p o i n t s
plete her nursing prerequisites. The connections she’d made when she attended Nurse Camp in 2010 paid off when she applied to the UW a few years later. “All my hard work, stress and tears finally paid off for my ultimate goal,” she says. “I was very grateful to have Nurse Camp to help me get through the application process.” The program has become so successful that it can’t keep up with the demand. This year, 123 applications were received for the 24 slots. Nguyen still keeps in touch with many of her peers from Nurse Camp and she hopes to join the leadership team when she starts UW in the fall. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in nursing, she plans to travel and do missionary work in nursing; she already has her eye on the Dominican Republic, Haiti and her home country, Vietnam. —Almeera Anwar,’12, is a Seattle freelance writer Nurse Camp is entirely run by donations. Learn how you can help at nursing.uw.edu/sponsornursecamp
ANI L KAPAHI (2 )
By Almeera Anwar
he UW School of Nursing is working to address the shortage of nurses from underrepresented minority communities with an innovative program that gives high school students a taste of what it’s like to be a nurse. Now in its fourth year, Nurse Camp brings in 24 underprivileged and under-represented students to the UW School of Nursing each July for a free intensive weeklong training that prepares them for nursing school and the profession as a whole. The program is fundraised and coordinated by the School of Nursing Diversity Awareness Group, a group of current UW nursing students. Tammy Nguyen is a true Nurse Camp success story. An immigrant from Vietnam, she attended Nurse Camp two years ago as a high school senior. Nurse Camp left such an impression on Nguyen that after she completed two years of prerequisites at community college, she applied to the UW BSN program and is starting this fall. But on this summer day, she is at the UW School of Nursing, serving as a volunteer instructor for the 2012 Nurse Camp. “When I was a Nurse Camp student, I remember while shadowing the nurse we had, we put on a medical gown and a mask, and it was such a cool experience,” says Nguyen. “I had never had the chance to do that before. I was so excited and was like ‘All right! Let’s do this!” The program gives students the chance to shadow nurses, learn how to take blood pressure and vital signs, get CPR certification and talk to nurses about the variety of jobs available. Students also benefit from a workshop on how to apply to college and nursing school. “The experiences they have in UW Nurse Camp give them hands-on, real-word and educational experiences they would not normally have access to,” says Carolyn Chow, ’97, director of admissions and multicultural student affairs at the UW School of Nursing. “Nurse Camp is a vital program that encourages young minority and underrepresented students to pursue nursing as a career. We want to change the face of health care and decrease health disparities.” Nguyen had wanted to come to UW as a freshman, but due to financial constraints, she attended Shoreline Community College to com-