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The Rueckert-Hartman College for Health Professions
Student Biographies
Traditional Bachelor of Science in Nursing
Heather Bryant's Biography | Read Heathers's Blog
Seems people are so good at talking about other people and often either too shy or too outspoken when it comes to talking about themselves. It’s time to find a happy medium and introduce to you a small part of who I am. I could tell you my life story, my near death experiences, my sagas of love and loss, but why tell you all that when the movies have covered every one of those scenarios already? They’ve probably already exaggerated it so that my story won’t even end up being interesting. Let's think of something different; something that might not make it in a movie, but might just end up being a mirror image to your life as you consider coming to Regis for nursing school.
I was always a smart kid. I never had to try very hard to keep my GPA a 4.0. But college was a whole new experience. It rocked my world as I learned what it meant to put life on hold for pages in a book. I learned how to ferociously write notes and study until my brain hurt. I went to a small, Christian school for my entire educational experience, and that is one reason I was drawn to Regis. I liked the values and the intimacy. I liked knowing the faces I passed in the halls, but more than that, I liked knowing their names, what they were interested in, what kind of families they came from, whether they preferred chocolate or vanilla, etc. I just like knowing people and what they’re about, what’s unique to them, what they stand for and why. So, I hoped that since Regis was a smaller university, I would feel that same familial connection. I almost didn’t apply to Regis because of the expense, but something about this school just had that right feeling. The confirmation came when I received a scholarship making it possible for me to attend, and I knew this was the place I wanted to and was meant to be.
I lived at home rather than on campus. This had its perks and its drawbacks. I was able to live at home with the comfort of my own room with my own bed and my own bathroom. But it made making friends a bit more difficult. When I finally felt like I had made a friend, we decided to name our "club" Regis Losers Who Drink Milk From a Straw. Yup. Exactly like it sounds because, for a little while, that’s what we felt like. She lived off campus as well and shared in my difficulty of making friends. Everyone seemed to at least know their roommate, but April and I, we knew no one. We flew solo into this new world. But, at least we now had each other and a club to be part of - even if we were the only official members. Don’t worry. It didn’t take long before I had a group of people at Regis I could call friends, and ever since, we have kept each other sane with random laughs, countless bags of salt and vinegar chips, Sobe, and green tea. After all we’ve already gone through together and will go through, I’m sure these girls will be my friends for a lifetime.
I did my first two years at Regis with the hope that I would meet the requirements for the seamless program where I would not have to apply for nursing school but, instead, just get right in. A few times, I was a bit panicky about the way my grades might turn out, but I managed to keep them high. One day, I opened my email only to receive one from the nursing school telling me I had a letter to pick up from their office. This must be it. This could determine the ease of my future. Sudden panic hit again. As I opened the door and walked into their office, hands shaking, I told them about the email I received from them, and very quickly my nerves were calmed. A sigh of relief. I had made it. I had met the seamless requirements, and upon completion of this semester with the right grades, I was going to nursing school in the fall! It took a lot of hard work, and I am a hard worker, sometimes giving anyone else but myself a break. Though the breaks that I do give myself usually involve dark chocolate and an episode of Grey’s.
I have a secret. Your professors don’t readily admit this, but there actually IS more to life than school. When I don’t have my nose jammed in my books or my fingers aren’t bleeding from paper cuts from endlessly flipping pages, I like to find myself trying new things, going new places, and adventuring in every way I can. Denver has so much to offer and I love the city and mountain balance. If you get bored with one, the other beckons quite obnoxiously until you find yourself somewhere you never even knew existed. That’s how I like to live life. I love to ride horses, hang out with friends, dance, sip coffee in local cafes, shop, cook, go to concerts, watch movies, read, hike, ski, sing, act, listen to and play music. Traveling is a HUGE part of my life! I spent the first several years of my life in Europe, and ever since, I’ve never been satisfied with the four walls that surround me. I need to get out there and travel the world, meet new people, embrace unfamiliar cultures, and I fully intend on taking nursing with me. Here I come!
Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing
Urvi Jhaveri's Biography | Read Urvi's Blog
Two years into my work in drug research and development I began feeling a void in my career path. I had been given the opportunity to work on “patient samples” from clinical trials – in other words, clear vials of bright, red blood with white labels coded with numbers. One vial, I learned, contained the blood of a young girl with acute lymphocytic leukemia for whom all other treatments had failed. Her blood reacted well after treatment with one of our compounds, promising hope to patients like this girl. We learned that during our research, however, this girl lost her life to the disease.
This was a remarkable lesson for me. Whereas my colleagues at the time were thinking about creating a better tomorrow, I was thinking about the lives of the people behind these “patient samples” and their families. I needed to attach a face to these vials to really understand for whom I was working. This led me to a handful of priceless volunteering positions. After work, I volunteered at Scripps Memorial Hospital on the oncology/medical floor. I saw that for many patients, nurses were their primary source of stability. The nursing staff, rather than the doctors and researchers, provided the immediate means for patients and families to get through the most vulnerable and stressful time of their lives.
I could do this. This was the belief that formed against the backdrop of my daily routine, which was a study in contrasts: drug development during the day, face to face patient interaction at night. Excited about the prospect of a career shift from researcher to nurse, I transferred from oncology to the emergency department where I could see a variety of patients as they entered the hospital. It was here that I realized for the first time my calling to be a nurse and provide personal and focused support. I subsequently transferred to Children's Hospital to concentrate my volunteer work on children and their families.
It was when my closest of family members became ill and underwent chemotherapy that I learned that nurses have a profound power as they strive to improve quality of life and restore integrity to individuals. Witnessing the role of the nurse in the most personal of ways has crystallized what has always been in me from the beginning – my firm belief that behind every vile of blood there is a loved one.
For many of us entering this program, a serious contemplation of career change needed to occur. We all spent many long nights and weekends buried in books, drowning in coffee, working, and volunteering, all to prepare us for this program. I look forward to the life-changing year ahead. Let’s get started.
Online RN to BSN / RN to MS in Nursing
Cheryl Bantle's Biography | Read Cheryl's Blog
I am not quite sure why I was nominated to be a journalist for Regis University as writing is something I find very difficult. All my friends and family say that I write as if I were speaking which is fine with people that know me but not with people that do not; this is especially obvious when I just go on and on, without punctuation (or even breathing sometimes), though these people all say that the content is complete.
Well, let me start by introducing my self. My name is Cheryl Bantle, and I live in a little town in Maine with a population of 798 (when I am home that is; I work as a travel nurse specializing in emergency medicine.). I have been married for almost 19 years to a wonderful man named Steven and together we have two teenagers. We watch them turn into adults; they help us to stay young. I have been a RN since March 1991; graduating from a traditional ADN program in December 1990. Yes, that was back in the time of the two-day state testing with pencil and paper and 6-8 week wait for results. I currently am on assignment working in Washington, DC and it reminds me constantly that I love emergency medicine. I also volunteer as an EMT-I when I am at home in Maine, and as an RN at a clinic in the Maryland area when on assignment.
I decided to pursue my advance degree after a recent illness made me take a look at my nursing career with regards to my physical abilities and the desire to remain at the bedside, but realizing that this may not be a long term option. I enrolled in school with the goal of eventually completing my MSN with a focus toward education as this is something that I have always wanted to do. I looked at many different online programs and found that the one at Regis best fit my busy life style and time constraints because I could enter the classroom when it was convenient for me and not at the demand of someone else. I could also work on assignments while traveling back and forth between DC and Maine. I was a little nervous with the online program as I am not the most computer-literate person out there, but I have found that everyone at Regis is very helpful and the instructors are knowledgeable and able to help trouble shoot as well. Having to only deal with one class during the eight weeks also helps to keep me focused. Being an organized person by nature, this has worked out great for me.
Health Services Administration
Michael Jackson's Biography | Read Michael's Blog
My name is Michael Jackson. I am 31 years originally born in Seattle, WA. I moved from Seattle to Georgia when I was 1 and half and spent roughly 21 years of my life in Georgia. How did I get to Regis University in Denver, CO and into the Masters in Health Services Administration program? I moved to Colorado in August of 2001 with a wife who was going to graduate school at Denver University. We met in undergrad at the University of Tennessee and got married right before I graduated. Turned out we got married too young and grew apart. After the divorce I started doing mortgages and decided to stay in Denver.
Now how did I go from mortgages to healthcare administration? While receiving my degree in Sociology at Tennessee, my father was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer. My parents gave me the options of coming back home for school or staying at Tennessee. I opted to stay in Tennessee. Now some might consider that selfish, but I knew that was the best course of action for me was to finish school. See it took me 3 years and 3 schools, transferring 4 times (I transferred to one school twice to get my grades up so I could transfer to another school) to finally find a college where I felt content and happy. I also knew by moving home, I was not going to be able to cure my father’s cancer. Plus, my 3 sisters all lived in Atlanta and I could drive the 3 and half hours home for any emergency. Well after starting to deal with my father having cancer, on the his birthday the following year I called home to wish him happy birthday and my mother gets on the phone and she surprise me with wonderful news that she has stage 1 lung cancer. So now both parents had cancer.
Looking back, this was a major catalyst that led me to this career path. One of the reasons I choose health care administration is because of the wonderful doctors my parents had in treating their cancer, particularly my father. My father was stage 3 when diagnosed, so it was advanced and he had to do some heavy chemo and surgery. The surgery was to remove the cancer from his lungs and the chemo was to try and kill the cancer. My father went into remission, but a year or so later it came back and began to spread and ultimately spread to brain tumors and at the end, bone marrow cancer. My father died in January of 2002, of a heart attack after his last brain surgery to remove more tumors. The physicians my father had were amazing; they answered all of my mother’s questions, explained how things would work and helped us as family deal with everything. I know my mother always praised the doctors on everything they did for my father and ultimately for the family. My mother’s cancer was stage 1, so they went in and cut out the cancerous part of her lung and she went into remission. By having such wonderful doctors, I saw how great communication could help the patient and family deal with such overwhelming circumstances.
Now the next push that brought me to Regis was my mother dying in 2004. My mother was diagnosed in early March 2004 with gallstones. It finally got so bad that she ended in the hospital in the ICU. My mother had her Bachelors, Masters and her PhD. My mother was a smart and intelligent woman who took bad advice and checked herself out of the hospital because she thought she was fine. Ultimately it was the breakdown of communication with herself and her doctor that led to her passing. Her physician was a foreign national and English was not his native language and they were not communicating with each other and she checked herself out and got septic and that is what caused my mother to pass. Now please don’t miss understand me, I am not and have never been upset with her physician. Like I said my mother was smart and she made the decision to check herself out because she thought she was ok. However, the lack of communication between my mother and her doctor led me to where I am today. I believe with great communication between patient, doctor and family, the medical process can be an obstacle that can be dealt with. Ultimately there is no reason for my sisters and me to be without both parents; my mother should still be here. I choose this career path to help in that regards. If I can help one family have better communication between doctor and patient and help them make better decisions, just maybe someone else won’t be 27 and have to get the phone call that their mother has just passed 3 days after their birthday.
Once I started this program and have had more access to the health care industry, I have found some other passions and ways to help in this field. One way is going on the service trip with the school to Ethiopia and Project Mercy. Another way is by volunteering at the hospital. I would recommend to anyone who is thinking about this career path, who has no healthcare experience to volunteer and see how giving can help and change how one views the world.
Doctor of Physical Therapy
Cody Butler's Biography | Read Cody's Blog
Farmer or health care professional? Those were my two options after taking the “personality job finder” quiz in the 7th grade. Growing up in a small town with chickens, pigs, and a random assortment of animals, the first option was a no-brainer for me. However, option 2 was something new and unexpected. From that time forward, my mind always returned to that thought, and after volunteering in different settings for a high school class, I was pretty sure I wanted to be a Physical Therapist because I always felt comfortable in a PT clinic.
Speaking of applying, I was determined on staying in my home state for PT school. I was already going to the same undergraduate school; we felt comfortable there . . . it just made sense. I applied to two other schools that sounded like a fun place to live and called it good. Neither of those was Regis. My wife, however, persuaded me to apply to Regis for the mere fact of having an even number of schools and another option. . . . just in case.
The funny thing is that I had no intentions of interviewing at Regis. I knew very little about the program except that it was a private school and that Allison Campbell, the Admissions Rep, was always on top of things: sending me emails, letters, etc. about the program and making me feel wanted. Lucky for me, interviews between my first school of choice and Regis were two weeks apart, because when I found out I was on the waiting list at school #1 and that the other two schools fell through, I still had time to reserve an interview at Regis, book a plane ticket, and begin to panic. Plan D was not an option, or was it?
However, from the first moment I came on campus, I was hooked. The grounds were beautiful, the teachers were very friendly, personal, and easy to talk to, the program was impressive; I loved the Jesuit service component, and to top it off, the lunch was amazing. I went home in a much better attitude than when coming out.
To make things complicated, I was later accepted into the program I originally wanted. My wife and I talked a lot, knowing that to choose Regis would mean a huge sacrifice, not only financially, but also leaving our comfort zone of family and friends and adventuring out on our own. There was just something about Regis that I did not feel with the other schools. Obviously, since I’m writing this, I chose Regis, and I stick to that decision. I’ve grown in ways that would not have been possible if I would have stayed with Plan A. I’ve overcome challenges and barriers through this program, have been stretched here and there, and look forward to future challenges while studying here at Regis.