#MeetUsMonday - Meet DNP Student Janice
Meet Janice.
Lifelong Celtics fan. Accordion player. Knitter, RV enthusiast, and Zumba dancer. Urological nurse practitioner and current DNP student with a penchant for teaching, lifelong learning, and using evidence based practice to make improvements at the bedside and on the unit.
HER PATH TO NURSING
“When I was about 12 years old, my Polish babcia (grandmother), who lived in the apartment upstairs from us, had a heart attack and my parents worked a lot and it was summertime so I had to take care of her. I found I enjoyed getting her medications together, being a caretaker. Later, when I went to college, I thought I wanted to be a music major, but my parents said, ‘No, you’re going to be a nurse. It's easy, they wear beautiful white uniforms and sit at a desk all day.’ Ha!”
“Every single professor I’ve encountered, and my advisors, talk to you one-on-one, and ask, ‘What can we do to make you succeed?’ Some of the opportunities I’ve had . . . I mean, would I ever have written an article about an accordion if Dr. Epstein hadn’t assigned it? I’m being inspired to stretch and grow."
DNP student Janice Lavoie
EARLY ROLES IN NURSING
“My first job out of school was in an inner-city teaching hospital on an orthopedic trauma unit. That was the in the 1980s, when nurses did everything and there were no nursing assistants. It was not an easy job but I loved it. The women I worked with there, when I started out, are still my friends.
“Later, I earned a master’s in nursing education, thinking I wanted to be a professor, but as an adjunct faculty member found I still had to work a full-time job to support my teaching hobby. I veered off into hospital staff development and education while working at DC General Hospital in the ER. I could write four books about that, it was very eye-opening, but one of the most rewarding jobs I ever had.
“I’ve worked in clinical research, with interventional cardiology, and got to see technologies as they developed, like drug alluding stents, which were experimental at the time. It makes me think, ‘Damn, I’m old!’”
READ Lavoie's essay, THE ETHICAL ACCORDION
ADVICE TO NEW NURSES
“Sometimes the best jobs you ever have are the ones you fall into, or that you think you’d never do. I thought I’d be an orthopedic nurse forever, but then I did cardiology, and loved that, was a coordinator for bariatric surgery, and loved that, and now do urology, and love it. Some days I walk in when everything’s complicated, and it can be stressful, but I enjoy my nurse practitioner’s autonomy, and the doctors let me do my thing, and the interaction I get with staff and other specialties, and of course the patients and families: it’s wonderful.”
WHAT THE DNP AND UVA IS LIKE
“In a school like UVA, I really felt like I fit in in a way I hadn’t before. My advisors have opened my eyes to the opportunities in nursing beyond what I’ve already done: both in industry and in teaching evidence-based practice and how to bring it to the forefront. It feels like a natural progression. I won’t say it’s not tough, but our faculty are there with us every step of the way, and they’re so inspiring.”
THE SCHOOL IN A WORD?
“COLLEGIAL. Every single professor I’ve encountered, and my advisors, talk to you one-on-one, and ask, ‘What can we do to make you succeed?’ Some of the opportunities I’ve had . . . I mean, would I ever have written an article about an accordion if Dr. Epstein hadn’t assigned it? I’m being inspired to stretch and grow.
“Also, I look at my classmates . . . we recently had a semester long group project, and I normally hate groups, but I think we were brought together by a higher power. We’re so close, it’s like an extended family; we know all about one another’s personal lives.”
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