By the end of the day on Saturday, 647 UNMC students will have received diplomas in Kearney, Lincoln, Omaha and Scottsbluff at commencement ceremonies.
Below are stories about some of the UNMC students who will receive degrees at the various ceremonies being held throughout the state.
Passion for nursing helps 38-year-old man overcome his disability
Despite a near-fatal car wreck that left him disabled, 38-year old Gale Hood has found his calling in nursing.
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Gale Hood |
The impact caused critical injuries for Hood and a girl in the other car. Both were in comas for a time. He was not expected to live because his injuries were so severe.
“For a long time, it was touch and go. There was a question whether either one of us would survive,” said Hood, who at the time worked for the railroad in Wyoming.
The accident meant several surgeries and a long rehabilitation. He lost much of the use of his right hip. He doesn’t have much range of motion and he limps.
He also had to live with the guilt knowing the accident caused others pain, although, he said, the young woman who was injured in the wreck held no grudge against him.
But as he recovered and dealt with his guilt from the accident, Hood also felt an interest in nursing — which he had initially discovered before the accident — begin to grow.
He decided to pursue nursing while in vocational rehabilitation. But his counselor told him it wasn’t a good idea. The counselor worried that Hood’s disability, which affects his walking, would prevent him from being a nurse.
But Hood persisted and tomorrow he’ll graduate from the UNMC College of Nursing’s Scottsbluff division.
“Over a period of time you learn how to compensate for any disabilities you have. If you look for what you can do and ways to get around the obstacles, there’s usually a way,” he said.
Hood knew he was in the right career when he began working in the various areas of nursing specialties — intensive care units, pediatrics, emergency nursing and the like.
“I loved all of it,” he said. “It fits my personality. I like people and I like making a difference and helping people. I’ve done a lot of different job skills but I feel like this fits me.”
Graduation day an American success story for Sudanese-American, former refugee
Growing up was hard for Yohanes Tot and not much hope was in sight. Displaced in war-torn Sudan, his home was in a refugee camp in Ethiopia for 16 years until he came to the United States and Omaha about eight years ago.
While attending high school at Benson High School, he worked about 30 hours a week. After graduating, he went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He worked full time while going to UNO so he could pay for his apartment.
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Yohanes Tot |
“It’s very bad. You go to school, come home and that’s it,” Yohanes said. “Living in a refugee camp is living in a compound. It’s hard but one way to get through it is by imagining things.”
He chose a career in clinical laboratory science based on his experiences in Africa. He will receive a bachelor’s degree in clinical laboratory science from the UNMC School of Allied Health Professions today.
He continued to work 25 hours a week while attending UNMC and taking a class load of 18 to 20 hours a semester.
At times, he would work in the lab almost all day, then go to work.
“Sometimes I wouldn’t see my apartment for 25 hours,” he said.
And if he wasn’t busy enough, he completed requirements and became a United States citizen in 2005. He also volunteers with the Red Cross, UNMC’s student run SHARING Clinic and serves as a translator for Alegent Health.
Yohanes spoke highly of faculty and fellow students and co-workers in the lab at UNMC.
“The people in the program are really nice. They opened their hearts to a new culture and take time to learn different cultures,” he said. “You can’t presume a certain culture is like this or that. You might be surprised to learn new things if you get to know someone’s culture.”
American Indian mother of 6 dedicated to rural health care
Anpo Charging Thunder is a product of UNMC’s Rural Health Opportunities Program (RHOP) and went to Chadron State College (CSC).
She is the mother of six children. She had five children before she even entered medical school.
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Despite having to raise six children, Anpo Charging Thunder, center with glasses, will receive her medical degree today during the College of Medicine’s commencement ceremony. |
Charging Thunder heard about RHOP from her mother when she was a senior in high school, however, she did not enroll at CSC until the fall of 2000, eight years after she dropped out of high school.
To get to CSC, Charging Thunder drove 100 miles to and from school Monday through Friday. During this time she also worked two to three evenings a week at a local hospital. It was during the dead hours when Charging Thunder was able to study.
After graduation, Charging Thunder plans to go back to western Nebraska and practice family medicine.
Third generation dentists follow in fathers’ footsteps from Hawaii to Nebraska
They’ve been together since birth. Well, actually, a little before that even.
They spent high school together, their undergraduate college years and even their dental school years.
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Renee and Cherie Uchida |
The twins, who are from the Hawaiian island of Oahu, are carrying on a family legacy. Their grandfather, father and uncle are dentists.
Their father, Clyde is a 1971 graduate of the UNMC College of Dentistry who practices pediatric dentistry in Honolulu where Renee and Cherie hope to return in two years to do the same.
“We’re fortunate to get into the program,” Cherie Uchida said. “UNMC was our first choice. We wanted to follow in our father’s footsteps.”
The twins knew from a very young age they wanted to be dentists.
“We’ve been exposed to dentistry since we were young,” Cherie said. “I think we’ve been very blessed to have those connections and been raised in a dental family. We like dentistry because we like working with people, helping others and working with our hands.”
They also have made history as the first twins entering the college’s residency program in its nearly 60 year history.
Renee said the two chose pediatric dentistry because of the impact they feel they make on children’s lives, as well as the enjoyment they get from working with children.
“There are funny comments you get from working with children,” Renee said “It’s priceless. They come up with the funniest things. It makes every day different. Children are so innocent, they’re funny and honest.”
Dr. Caldwell goes from career in agronomy to being a pharmacist
Robert Caldwell, Ph.D., chose his first career in agronomy in 1974 because of his love of farming and his interest in helping the poorest farmers of the world produce more food.
That pursuit led to a Ph.D. in agronomy, which he earned in 1984. He held faculty positions at the University of Maryland, the University of Hawaii, and most recently the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
In his 20 years as a professor, he enjoyed a wealth of great experiences.
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Robert Caldwell, Ph.D., gets a language lesson from students at an orphanage/school in Kabul during a medical mission Dr. Caldwell served in 2006. Dr. Caldwell will receive his Pharm.D., today after leaving behind a 20-year career in agronomy. |
He was disheartened by geopolitics, which he said hampered the world’s poorest farmers with cheap imported food and expensive fertilizer.
So he applied to the UNMC College of Pharmacy and will receive his Pharm.D., today at the college’s commencement ceremony.
He doesn’t regret entering the health-care field later in life.
“If I had considered pharmacy as a career in 1974, it would have held no appeal to me, but 30 years later as I looked at the field I realized that pharmacists have the opportunity to play an integral role in health care,” Dr. Caldwell said. “Medicine is complicated enough to warrant having pharmacists work closely alongside doctors and nurses. That was an exciting prospect.”
In 2006, he had the opportunity to apply his skills to the poor. He was one of 14 to serve in Afghanistan on a two-week medical mission. He and his colleagues set up mobile clinics and dispensed medication from a makeshift pharmacy, as well as counseled patients on their medications and health.
“It was an extraordinary experience bringing health care to the country,” he said. “We made a visible and direct impact on our patients, particularly the women and girls who went without regular health care under the Taliban. We played a small part fostering goodwill in the war-torn country.”
He plans to return to Afghanistan. After graduation he will work for the Indian Health Service in Rosebud, S.D.
Graduating PT student says words of encouragement helped her reach goals
Darnita Spann made the right choice.
There was a lot of drug activity in Memphis, Tenn., where she grew up, along with many people who had no aspirations. She didn’t want to go down that road.
“As I was growing up, it seemed like people at the right time offered me words of encouragement along the way,” Spann said. “They told me not to give up, to focus on school. There were a lot of deterrents that could have led me not to be successful.”
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Darnita Spann |
Ultimately she decided she was more interested in the medicine. After graduating, she got married and moved to Omaha when her husband was recruited to work at The Nebraska Medical Center.
That’s when she joined the physical therapy program at UNMC.
She enrolled and was one of 42 students in the class.
As the only black student in her class, she said at first it was a little awkward. She said Vanderbilt has a large minority recruitment program.
“I saw more minorities at Vanderbilt than at UNMC. I think it was an adjustment also for my classmates,” Spann said. “I didn’t have any bad experiences. I was sort of comfortable being the only African American. It got to the point where you didn’t think about it anymore.”
She said what she will remember fondly about UNMC is the group activities that brought she and her fellow classmates together.
“We all became very good friends. You’re together so much you became like sisters and brothers,” she said. “It was a really supportive environment. There really wasn’t a competition. It was more like a team effort.”
She and her husband will soon move to Florida. She’ll study for her board exam then pursue a job in physical therapy.