Jen Miller graduated from Aspen’s Master of Science in Nursing with a specialization in Public Health, RN-MSN bridge program in April 2024! Prior to starting her program, Jen suffered a traumatic injury that she continued to recover from while also going to school. Keep reading to hear more of Jen’s inspirational story.
The COVID-19 Pandemic created a strain unlike any seen before on the American public health system and I found myself incredibly burned out from working at a state public health department as a nurse consultant. Communicable disease was a passion for me, but I reached a point where I was considering getting a restaurant server job just to do something else. I had looked into getting my Master’s in Nursing, but I could not see the benefit in the years prior to the Pandemic. I had a B.S. in chemistry (nursing was a second career for me) and was partway to earning my Master of Public Health with the idea that I would become an epidemiologist. It seemed like a great fit to my love of data and communicable disease control, but the Pandemic changed all of that.
In the fall of 2021, I quit my job at the state health department and was hired as a care management nurse for internal medicine and primary care clinics. It would be a vast shift, but I needed to leave public service and care management is a form of public health services. I took off three weeks between jobs to spend time with my family after working vast amounts of overtime the years prior. Unfortunately, during that time off, I fell working on our second story deck and suffered a cranial fracture, intracranial bleed, and a serious traumatic brain injury. I was life-flighted to Seattle, but ultimately stabilized quickly without intervention. I started working at the clinic about a week and a half after this accident. My writing was impaired, and my short-term memory was heavily impacted for the first month.
All my training and knowledge of nursing to that point did not prepare me to deal with the aftereffects of a traumatic brain injury. I did not know that my writing had been affected until I started taking notes during training for my new role. I wrote “@” instead of an “a,” and some of my letters were upside down. I had migraines frequently at first, and five minutes after closing a chart, I could not remember what I had done without opening it back up again. I built in several reminders and safeguards in our charting system, and had my coworkers check my work constantly to make sure I was providing good nursing care. The head injury also caused horrible insomnia and impulsivity. My husband had to revoke my Amazon privileges after ordering thirty hemostats and twenty-five trauma scissors for reasons I really could not explain other than thinking I needed them. One night at 3 am, I decided to sign up for classes in Aspen. I had researched other schools prior to the accident, and Aspen is the one I had put to the top of my list. You can imagine my husband’s face when I proudly announced I was going back to school the next morning. I started the RN to MSN program in February of 2022. Fortunately, I set my start date a few months down the road when I signed up for classes.
The schoolwork assigned through the program with Aspen was pivotal in my recovery from this injury. I had to work through some of the issues I had with writing after the fall. I tended to drop articles in sentences or start sentences but not complete them. The major effects on my thinking resolved within the first month, but the lasting effects required a lot of work to rectify. I was terrified that perhaps I could not be a nurse anymore, but between supportive and loving coworkers, family members, and the classwork, I was able to prove to myself that I was a safe and effective nurse. A good consequence of the fall was that my documentation became meticulous, because I was afraid I would not remember what I had done. After a month or so, I didn’t need my safeguards, but those practices have become my daily routine as it is consistent with the standards of nursing anyway.
I finished the RN to MSN program in April of 2024, and I could not be happier with the knowledge, skills, and abilities that I have learned or refined in this process. People will often ask me what my plan is with the MSN, and I typically laugh and say, “There really was not a plan when I signed up.” The classes in pharmacology and assessment have been tremendously helpful in my current role, and I can say confidently that my schooling with Aspen has made me a better nurse. Having an MSN has opened other doors that I may potentially need in the future, too. However, for now, I am happy in my current role and pleased with my schooling that has helped me be more effective. I do live with some long-term effects of the injury, but I am well-equipped to work as a nurse despite them.
Jen is an excellent example achievement despite barriers. Aspen’s mission is to provide any motivated student the opportunity to earn their degree. Aspen has services in place to support students throughout their educational journey, including accessibility and accommodations support and a dedicated academic advising team. If you’d like to explore Aspen’s nursing programs, check out the School of Nursing and Health Sciences webpage!