Loralisa Summerhays, nursing senior, moved from across the country to get where she is today.
Summerhays is from Alaska, but she didn’t initially end up at OCU for college.
“I transferred from University of Alaska Anchorage to St. Gregory’s in Shawnee, Oklahoma,” she said. “And during my first semester of nursing school, I found out four weeks before finals that we were about to be shut down.”
St. Gregory’s University closed at the end of the Fall 2017 semester due to financial reasons, according to Student Publications archives. Summerhays said the Kramer School of Nursing took her and her classmates in after the school closed.
“It’s difficult for the nursing track because you have to go through the state board of nursing, but Oklahoma City University took us all in and aren’t making us take any additional classes,” she said.
She and her classmates were given a professor as an adviser to make sure they stayed on track, Summerhays said.
“Every single professor has made the transitions easy for us,” she said.
Now Summerhays is in her busiest semester yet, she said.
“We have lecture Monday through Wednesday, and we’re also doing clinical rotations and working with a preceptor,” she said.
Summerhays has an interest in oncology and was paired with a nurse who specializes in it.
Summerhays said she has to work six 12-hour shifts and two eight-hour shifts for her class credit.
“I work the night shift, so I’m there from 7 p.m. Saturday night to 7 a.m. Sunday morning,” she said.
Summerhays is studying at INTEGRIS Southwest Medical Center, 4401 S. Western Ave., as well as working clinical rotations on Thursdays from 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at St. Anthony Hospital, 1000 N. Lee Ave. She began her rotations at the beginning of the semester.
“I’m in critical care right now, so my rotation is in the ICU and ER,” she said. “Each week, we get assigned a patient and practice administering drugs with a nurse watching over us.”
Summerhays said she doesn’t have a job yet but has been applying for positions.
“We work with career services to make sure we get a job by the time we graduate,” she said.
Stacy Nelson, nursing senior, met Summerhays in a nursing class and said she is productive and adaptable.
“The fact that she transferred and got into two honor societies is crazy, Sigma Theta Tau and Phi Kappa Phi,” Nelson said. “She’s a very bubbly person. I just think she adapts very well, and she’s just doing amazing.”
Summerhays might stay in Oklahoma after graduation, or she might go back to Alaska.
“I never say ‘never.’ I would like to go home, but wherever offers me work is where I’ll stay,” she said. “They encourage nursing students to get at least two years of experience before graduate school.”
Summerhays said students should work hard when pursuing their careers.
“Just don’t give up,” she said. “It’s hard to see the end of the road when you’re just beginning, but as this last semester has begun, it just makes you realize it was all worth it.”
Leave a Reply