As a bedside nurse for six years, Zach Smith knew the frustration of keeping track of his ever-changing work schedule. He and his wife, a fellow graduate of the Washington State University College of Nursing, would text each other lists of their upcoming shifts.  

Sharon McCalden Wedam (BSN ’72) retired in July 2017 after 30 years at Providence Centralia Hospital and concurrently 28 years at Morton General. At Providence she worked in the ER, ICU-PCU, and Quality Management, and at Morton she worked as a staff nurse.

Judy Evans (BSN ’74) has worked at the bedside her entire 44 years of nursing. Widowed at the age of 41, her nursing career enabled her to raise her children and provide for them. She has been a member of the American Society of PeriAnesthesia Nurses (ASPAN) since 1985. She works in the PACU at Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. She … » More …

Rachel Gunning has been a NICU nurse in Spokane for three years. Now she has a Kickstarter campaign to launch a card game.

The first thing isn’t the cause of the second. It’s not like she’s disillusioned with nursing.

Russell Michaelsen didn’t graduate from the WSU College of Nursing until he was nearly 50, after working as a medical lab tech, logger, commercial fisherman, hunting guide, and builder.

An alumna of the WSU College of Nursing led a drive to raise money to buy dozens of pizzas for the staff of a hospital in Las Vegas after 58 people were killed at a concert there.

Emilie Kimball’s nursing degree will take her across the globe later this month to volunteer for Mercy Ships in Africa.

With undergraduate students beginning their nursing studies this week, we asked WSU College of Nursing alumni and the larger nursing community what they wish they’d known then. Here’s what they said:

Kathryn Brault loves her job, and that’s why she’s a preceptor for the WSU College of Nursing and other schools.

Just a decade after Shelly McHugh graduated from what would become known as the WSU College of Nursing, she began a regular habit of donating to the school.

Nursing wasn’t Lorie Stucke’s first love. That was journalism, the career where she’d spent more than a decade. But turmoil in that industry prompted her to do some soul-searching.

What she liked about journalism was the chance to build trust with someone, to tell their story and by that action become part of their story in a small way. What other career, she wondered, could make her feel the same way?

Turns out, it was nursing. “I realized that patients need you to help them understand what’s happening, that they can’t always articulate what they need and you need to be their champion,” she said. … » More …