La Reina Grad Grateful for SND Education and Foundation

Jacy Bessolo fondly remembers her years at La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks, California. While a student there, she learned the school’s core values of compassion, critical and creative thinking, friendship, and love. “Service to others was also a key part of the La Reina experience,” Jacy states. “I volunteered at Los Robles Hospital for several years throughout high school.”

Today, the proud La Reina alumna mirrors these same core values while serving as a member of a medical mission team in Rwanda, East Africa. Jacy, a nurse anesthetist, provides care for patients undergoing urogynecologic surgeries.

Jacy attended Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts for both her undergraduate nursing degree and master’s degree in Nurse Anesthesia. She currently works as a Nurse Anesthetist at Massachusetts General Hospital. “I first became involved in medical missions when one of my Northeastern University professors invited me and another classmate on a mission trip as an elective experience in global health,” she explains.

Jacy says her patients in Rwanda are all female, ranging in age from early 20s to late 50s, and suffer from obstetric fistulas or other urogynecologic problems. Most women live in the rural countryside with limited access to medical care.

“When the team arrives at the hospital, the women -- who have traveled to be evaluated and, hopefully, undergo surgery -- dance and sing in celebration,” describes the sympathetic nurse. “As a woman, it’s incredibly touching to help other women restore their dignity and provide them with a chance to return to their normal lives. These medical mission trips have strengthened my passion for international volunteer work as well as my passion to advocate for women’s gynecologic and reproductive health care.”

“I would have to say I definitely adopted the SND mission of caring for others in love, particularly the poor and marginalized, in my work as a nurse anesthetist,” Jacy says. “The Sisters of Notre Dame helped create the foundation through my high school experience which strongly influenced my career path, compassionate approach, and core values.”

“I would like to say a huge thank you to the sisters!” exclaims Jacy. “I have so much gratitude for my teachers and La Reina sisters for providing a strong foundation for me to grow from, and for challenging me to be my best self.”