We congratulate the 136 students named to the Dean's List!

Degree-seeking students with a 3.75 semester grade point average (GPA) or better who are enrolled in 12 or more credit hours have qualified for the Dean's List. 

“Growing up in my country, there were no doctors or nurses nearby. The only clinic was far away.”

Anna Michael was born in the small farming village of Kupera in what is now South Sudan. She had seven brothers and sisters, three of whom lost their lives to infection or anemia before age two.

The closest clinic was a 12-hour bicycle ride away. Anna’s father would carry his sick children on the back of his bicycle, hoping to find the clinic open to the long line of patients sure to be waiting there. As far back as she can remember, Anna saw the need for better medical care and more nurses.

“Nurses play such a big impact in a patient’s success,” Anna said. “I knew I wanted to be a nurse.”

Anna was determined to realize her dream, but she never expected the challenges ahead—or that the journey would lead her to the United States and to Nebraska Methodist College.

Justin Druskis, 32, didn’t set out to become a respiratory therapist. Three years ago, he didn’t even know the career field existed. He just knew he was unhappy at work.

“I had a master’s degree in international business and was a director for a real estate development firm,” Justin said. “Yet I sat behind a desk wondering why I was miserable.”

Talking this over with a buddy of his, Justin said, “You’re always happy with your job. Tell me exactly what it is you do and why you like it so much.”

Turns out, Justin’s buddy is a respiratory therapist.

“Patients love that my sister Annie and I are twins, said Jane Rodgers, “and they seem fascinated to see us working together at the hospital." 

The togetherness that began in utero for the Rodgers twins has continued through their college and career choices, shaping the journey from their home in Loveland, Colorado, to Omaha, Nebraska. 

Together, the twins earned liberal arts degrees at Hastings College. Now they work together as certified nursing assistants at Methodist Hospital, and they are classmates in the BSN program at Nebraska Methodist College. 

“Nursing runs in our blood,” Jane said. 

Peggy Dyer, 63, graduated from a diploma nursing program in western Nebraska in 1976, the same year Apple Computer was founded, the original “Rocky” debuted in movie theaters, and gasoline cost a whopping 59 cents a gallon.

Peggy has a message for any RN wondering if it’s too late or too hard to go back to school for a BSN degree:

“If I can do it, you can!”

Who managed the first Nebraska Methodist Hospital and its School of Nursing, assisting with nursing services and nursing education? Methodist deaconesses. These were women dedicated to saving lives and souls.

If you’re a diploma- or associate degree-prepared RN wondering if you can and should go back to school to get a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, here’s the short answer: YES.

NMC Professor Wins National Award for Innovative Use of Technology

“It was definitely crazy the first time Dr. Feng showed us this table. I’d never seen anything like it!”

Abbie Carlson, a first-year nursing student at Nebraska Methodist College, said she remains awed and amazed by NMC’s new, high-tech 3D anatomy table and visualization software.

“There’s so much detail!” Abbie said. “We’re looking inside the human body to see and study each system—skeletal, muscular, cardiovascular, neurological, everything.”

Manufactured by Anatomage, this is the world’s first virtual dissection table, an interactive technology that is putting fully segmented, real human anatomy at the fingertips of NMC’s nursing and allied health students.

From left in feature photo above: Nathan Johnson, Hannah Snow, Dr. Sophie Feng, and Abbie Carlson.

More than 750,000 readers of USA Today had the chance to see NMC alumnus and returning graduate student Troy Beekman, BSN, RN, CCRN, in print in the recent supplemental insert “Men in Human Services” from Mediaplanet.

We congratulate the 147 students named to the Dean's List!

Degree-seeking students with a 3.75 semester grade point average (GPA) or better who are enrolled in 12 or more credit hours have qualified for the Dean's List.