Columbia Nursing Celebrates 2016 Graduates

Speaking to the largest graduating class in the nearly 125-year history of Columbia Nursing, renowned health policy expert Sheila Burke, RN, called upon newly minted nurses, advanced practice nurses, and nurse scientists to take up the mantles of leadership, scholarship and social responsibility. “At times, this means taking risks knowing you will fail. Accept it, learn from it and move on. And never give up.

 

Burke, who served almost two decades on Capitol Hill working on legislation involving Medicare, Medicaid, Maternal and Child Health programs, and healthcare reform, told the hundreds of ETP (Entry-to-Practice) MS, DNP and PhD graduates who filled the Washington Heights Armory on May 17 how healthcare has traveled an “almost unfathomable” distance in the last three generations to a world of technological complexity and information overflow, where nurses’ greatest challenge will be to retain their essential humanity. Yet, she was steadfast in her assertion that every member of the Class of 2016 was fully equipped to accept this challenge and make a lasting difference.

           

“In choosing nursing as a profession, we have taken on the role of advocate not only for ourselves but for those we care for and for their families,” she said. “While your patients may not remember your names, they will remember the kindness you showed them.”

           

Echoing this sentiment, Dean Bobbie Berkowitz, PhD expressed pride and expectation as the graduates prepared to take their places within the healthcare system and use their expertise to strengthen society and people’s health. “Your success is a reflection of your intellect, your passion for nursing and the quality of the education you’ve received,” Berkowitz said.

           

Burke made the point that nursing is defined not by workplace but by commitment to caring for others, whether domestically or abroad, in a community or hospital setting, at home or school, in an office or in government. “You treat a disease, you win or lose. You treat a person, you always win.”

           

Both she and Lee Goldman, MD, Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, extolled nurses’ educational and professional accomplishments since the days when their white caps narrowed perceptions of their capabilities. “Now...you can recognize Columbia nurses by their doctoral tams, their masters’ caps and their bachelors’ white coats,” Goldman said. “What a change. What a great change.”

 

Sharron Close ’01 ‘03 ’11 welcomed graduates into graduates into both the school's alumni association, as well as into the broader University-wide Columbia Alumni Association. 

           

Student commencement speaker and nurse midwifery student Diana Dos Santos Faustino embodies such change. A first generation immigrant and the first female in her family to finish high school and earn a college degree, Faustino traced her passion for nursing to her profound appreciation for the Federally Qualified Health Center nurses who cared for her as a child. “This same sense of gratitude to nurses we encountered in our childhood, or at a critical moment in our lives, [along with] the desire to strengthen our communities through healing, brought many of us in this room to Columbia,” said Faustino, who graduates in October 2016. “We are all Columbia Nurses as a result of our compassion and the empathy we have for our patients.”

           

Two other notable members of the Class of 2016 were Paul Coyne ’13, and Dyan Summers ’01 ’16, who earned doctorates in nursing practice. Coyne, currently a manager of analytics and insights at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital, has a combined MBA in health care management and a master’s degree in finance, in addition to  bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Columbia Nursing. But it was his recovery from a profoundly disabling stroke in 2008 that highlights his latest achievement––becoming a DNP and cofounder of a health care technology company called “All iNspiRe,” which aims to improve patient experiences by monitoring, analyzing and enhancing patient-provider interactions.

 

Summers also overcame enormous obstacles. Raised in a trailer in a farm community, she became enamored with nursing during a high school nurse’s aide training program, and went on to earn certificates in tropical diseases and travel medicine, as well as a master’s from Mailman School of Public Health, and a Master’s degree from Columbia Nursing. Now a tropical disease expert, Summers identified the first American traveler with the Zika virus, wrote about the case for the Journal of Travel Medicine and has amassed a collection of work that helped her earn her doctorate. Since recovering from an experimental procedure for the multiple sclerosis that she was diagnosed with in 2007, she has become a fitness devotee and founder of Enhanced Professional Athletic Care, a company that brings collaborative medical care and wellness programs to male and female team athletes.

 

In her closing remarks, Burke marveled at all of Columbia Nursing’s graduates, whose inner strength, caring and social consciousness brought them to where they are today. “Every single one of you is equipped through your education, experience, and your talents to make your way in the world.” She emphasized that commencement did not mark the end of their education but the beginning of a journey that would lead to opportunities to improve the health and lives of others. “Passed on to you this afternoon along with your degree...is a society where...everyone can make a difference.”

           

Added Berkowitz, “When you began your journey at Columbia, we, your faculty, became your future. Now, you will become our future.”