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| Kasia Dodman |
About to be pinned as a registered nurse, Graduate School of Nursing (GSN) student Kasia Dodman is well on her way to caring for hospital patients as an acute care nurse practitioner specializing in cancer care. The Graduate Entry Pathway pinning ceremony kicks off Convocation events at UMass Chan tonight at 6 and is followed by a reception in the Albert Sherman Center café.
The ceremony is a time-honored tradition of nursing programs throughout the world, a rite of passage into the profession, and a reminder to everyone of nursing’s promise to serve others. For Dodman and her 28 classmates who have completed the first leg of the school’s Graduate Entry Pathway for nontraditional students, it marks the first step on their transition from other professions to becoming master’s or doctorally prepared advanced practice nurse practitioners.
“Nursing is the core of health care,” Dodman said of her choice to pursue graduate nursing education instead of medical school. “You come home from work and feel like you made a difference.”
Despite not speaking a word of English when she immigrated to the United States from Poland at age 20, Dodman earned a Bachelor of Arts in history at Clark University as an English-as-a-second-language student, before launching a career in the banking industry and earning an MBA. But she realized her heart wasn’t in finance. In 2009, she shifted gears to become a health care provider.
A member of a close knit family of health care providers, Dodman was especially inspired by her mother, a dedicated nurse in Krakow. While obtaining a pre-medical diploma at the Harvard Extension School, she realized how much she loves providing direct patient care during her first clinical experience as a phlebotomist at Brigham & Women’s Hospital.
“I can’t wait to be a nurse,” Dodman said. “It is such good work.”
