Our graduates express themselves…
Anaivis Uria Zamora
I graduated on the nursing program at lnteramerican University of Puerto Rico, Aguadilla Campus in 2016. It was a wonderful experience for me, and thank to their amazing program, I was able to pass the NCLEX test and achieved my dream to become a nurse.
The program provided all necessary courses and I did not need to take any additional classes to get accredited. Today I am a full time RN at University of Louisville Health Jewish Hospital.
I consider that the standard and priority of teaching was powerful, in addition the professionalism, knowledge and wisdom of the professors allowed me to develop critical thinking and provide a holistic care in my path as a nurse today.
I feel very grateful with nursing faculty as an individual, student and professional.
Anaivis Uria Zamora
UofL Health Jewish Hospital, Kentucky State lnter American University, Aguadilla Campus Class of 2016
Zulmary Cabán
My name is Zulmary Cabán, and I’m a nurse from Puerto Rico. Since I was a little girl, I knew that I would become a nurse just like my mom. I started my bachelor’s degree in August 2009 at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico. I was the vice-president of the Student Nursing Association, which was an excellent opportunity to apply the nursing care plan and assist in the community.
Inter American University’s Aguadilla Campus has excellent nurse educators, and they possess strong leadership, communication skills, and outstanding theoretical and clinical knowledge. I graduated in June 2013 and passed my Nursing License on my first attempt. I worked as an Infusion Nurse from 2013 to 2014, and then I started working at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico Aguadilla. It was nice to be back at the university, and this time I was working as a Nursing Laboratory Tech. It was a wonderful experience. In 2017, I took the NCLEX exam and passed it on my first attempt. In January 2018, I started working as a Nurse Care Manager for New York State. Besides, I was admitted to Capella University MSN Nursing Informatic Program. I got a scholarship and am currently taking eight credits online. It is lovely to see all the opportunities that I have had thanks to the unique nursing program of the Inter American University of Puerto Rico-Aguadilla Campus. What I like about the university is that staff are accommodating and very concerned about their student’s education. They are creative, intelligent, competent, resilient, and fair.
Ingrid D. Cancela Patiño
As a graduate of Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Aguadilla Campus, I know firsthand the high quality of education provided to students. I appreciate not only the education I received, but also the values that Inter American University of PR instilled in me, like critical perspective on the world and a focus on patient care. I am also proud that the college has become a leader in sustainability and sought to involve students in decision-making. Inter American University of Puerto Rico has prepared me for the nursing world in ways I can’t even described. Thanks to the university I have acquired a lot of skills that have made me a better nurse. I graduated on June 2017, that same month I moved to Seattle, WA to start a new journey at the Department of Veterans Affairs Hospital at the Spinal Cord Injury. I am currently Charge Nurse for this unit, skills that I have learned from my years at the Inter American University thanks to the leadership the program has. I just finished my MSN in Informatics, the education I have received at Inter American helped me accomplished this goal in life. Professors at Inter American has taught me how to be successful not only as a staff nurse but as a leader. The education and the staff at Inter has permitted me to become a better nurse, a better teacher, a better human and a better leader.
Sincerely,
Ingrid D. Cancela Patiño
Amed Gonzáelz
I am writing you today to give my testimony regarding my career after having graduated from the Inter American University of Puerto Rico in Aguadilla. I started nursing school in 2013 after having left the military as well as my wife. Both of us graduated at the top of our class in 2015 from the ADN and again in 2017 with the BSN, also at the top of the class with each one of us having a 3.93 GPA. I started working in the summer of 2015 after having passed the Puerto Rico Licensure Exam for nursing at a local ER. I was initially scared because my first job was in an ER where I was expected to respond to many kinds of emergencies and be able to take point in codes and lead the team in other occasions. This fear quickly disappeared as I was able to use the skills that I learned in both the classroom setting and the clinical rotations which had prepared me to be successful in my early nursing days. I continue to have a full-time job in the ER as well as taking the BSN classes as a full-time student. The classes were very flexible for people like me and enabled me to go to school on days, nights and weekends, depending on my work schedule. After about a year in the local ER, I went to work in a major hospital, Manati Medical Center as an ER RN which was much larger, challenging, and saw more complicated.
Because at the time there were not many BSN students in the ER, mostly ADN, I was given more responsibilities as the charge nurse on some nights as well as leading teams and I felt that the education that I was concurrently receiving was a big part of me being able to take on a larger role. At the end of 2016, I accepted a position in the Emergency Department at the San Juan VA Medical Center which is one of the most prestigious hospitals in Puerto Rico. I continued to use my skills learned in previous job while also continuing to do clinical rotations in the last few classes of the BSN. In the summer of 2017, right before graduation, I accepted a position at the Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina as an ICU Nurse. I left soon after the classes were finished and started my new job at the prison. Little did I know that this prison had an actual full-size hospital onsite and the nurses were able to rotate to many of the department every so often. I worked at the prison for 2 years and held many positions such as ICU RN, Oncology RN, OR RN, Dialysis RN, PICC Nurse, IV nurse, and Ambulatory Nurse. I then transferred from the Federal Prison to the local VA Hospital as a Surgical Intensive Care
Unit. At this time, my wife, also an Inter American RN, was already working at this VA since summer of 2017 as the PM Charge RN for a long-term care/hospice unit. In 2018, I accepted a transfer to the Alaska VA Healthcare System as the Assistant Chief of the Social and Behavioral Health Department in which I was supervising Nursing and non-nursing personnel as well and my wife because the Assistant Nurse manager for a 50 bed residential inpatient unit for homeless veterans and substance use. I recently was offered a position of Nurse Manager of this residential 50 bed unit after my wife had moved to a different department as the lead of one of the teams. I am currently finishing a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Program and my wife will be starting an Adult Gerontology Nurse Practitioner program in the fall. I explained all my positions and success as well as shared some of the success that my wife has had as well not to praise ourselves but to show how well prepared, we were to take on the nursing world after graduating from such a great program. Both myself and my wife are currently Nurse Level 3 at the VA which is something that normally takes other nurse more than 10 years to achieve and we have done it in less than half of that time. Both of us are very happy and honored to have attended such an amazing program that has changed our lives in set us in a great path for a very successful future. Thank you for all you have done as the program director and to all the teachers that were part of our success. We will forever be in your debt.
V/R
Amed González
Cecilmarie Valentín
I am a graduate of the Nursing Program of the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico, Aguadilla Campus. I have been working for 1 year and 4 months in the 4th South department in the telemetry unit at the Bellavista Hospital in Mayagüez. I also worked in the area of Medicine and Intensive Care Unit at Hospital San Carlos in Moca.
The Aguadilla Campus Nursing Program is the most complete and competitive program that you will find throughout the Inter-American University. It is a program that has maintained a high percentage of revalidation passes at the island level. The program did not only challenge me intellectually, but also helped me develop personally. Likewise, it helped me develop the empathy and sensitivity with the patients that we need so much in our vocation.
From experience, I can say that it has the best team of professors, laboratory technicians, secretarial personnel and other personnel. I am very grateful to Dr. Olavarría, who strives to listen to her students and seek new learning opportunities for them. She served and still serves me as a great inspiration to achieve my personal and professional goals.
Selecting this institution for my professional goals was definitely the right choice.
Cordially,
Cecilmarie Valentín
Kathia M. Feliciano
I am pleased to be writing to you today as an ex-alumni to express my gratitude towards you and the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico – Aguadilla Campus faculty. The Nursing Program offered by the institution opened a world of possibilities into my professional success as a Registered Nurse.
After graduating top of my class in both my ADN in 2017 and BSN in 2019, not without effort and sacrifice I might say, I was awarded «The Florence Nightingale Medal” and received recognition by the CPEPR organization for performance, academic achievement, leadership, responsibility, service and humanism with patients. Yet this would have not been possible without the help and guidance of such excellent nurse educators and their outstanding theoretical and clinical knowledge, which they’ve passed on.
I moved to the US on July 2019 where I started to prepare for my NCLEX Examination. Thanks to all the tools, education and preparation given me through the program, I passed my boards in November 2019 and obtained my Nursing License. It is with great pride that I say today I work as a Registered Nurse with Integrity Health Services, a pediatric home care agency and have also been accepted in Blake Medical Hospital starting August 24th, 2020 in their Med-Surgical Unit.
I am forever grateful for all the opportunities offered and the interest for my future, growth and development as a healthcare provider always shown by each and every one of my professors. They are excellent, valuable professionals and the pillars of the science in nursing program, of course you included.
Sincerely,
Kathia M. Feliciano, RN
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