Graduating twins to celebrate another joint milestone

They’ve been diving coaches, waitresses, lifeguards and now, soon-to-be nurses.

Twin sisters, Gibby and Lexie Ryan have experienced much of life side-by-side and will again this Saturday when they graduate from the UNMC College of Nursing with their Bachelor of Science in Nursing degrees.

It marks yet another joint milestone for the Omaha sisters, who attended Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. And, it’s a career path influenced by years of medical visits.

Gibby was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a complex congenital heart defect that affects normal blood flow through the heart. In junior high, she had her second open heart surgery and spent four days at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center.

It was then that both sisters decided to pursue nursing careers.

Gibby credits a “great nurse named Karen who I absolutely loved,” for making the difference. And, Lexie, who has been there for her sister’s yearly medical visits, said it was during that visit that she really envisioned nursing as “something I could do with the rest of my life.”

They recalled spending time at the nursing home with their great grandparents, seeing nurses they knew at Midwest Heart Connection events and watching their grandmother, Aura Whitney-Jackson, at work as a longtime South Omaha Community liaison for UNMC.

Nursing school is intense and hard work, they said, but Gibby appreciates the “unlimited opportunities and options” she’s had at UNMC for clinical hours, and Lexie loved her three-week nursing trip to Amman, Jordan.

Both look forward to some R&R before joining the workforce. “I’ve been on the patient side, and it will be nice to be on the other side,” Gibby said. “I can bring a unique perspective to the job.”

In mid-June, she will join the cardiac care unit at Children’s Hospital. Lexie will join her — in the same cardiac care unit — in late September.

“We’ve always worked well together,” Gibby said.

But first, they’ll graduate, and then, later this month, cheer on their younger brother who graduates from high school.

“It’s a big year for our parents,” Lexie said.