UHCL nursing student dedicated to NICU

September 28, 2016 | Kelsie Cleboski

Every nurse has a specialty. For many of them, it’s a passion — a niche, as University of Houston-Clear Lake Bachelor of Science in Nursing student Jennifer McGinnis calls it. Her niche is the neonatal intensive care unit, known as NICU, where she serves at Texas Children’s Hospital.

For her tiny patients, McGinnis is one of the first caregivers they encounter in their new lives. For their families, she’s an advocate and a lifeline. She would not have it any other way.

“You watch the babies grow. You build a really good relationship with the parents and the family. They take you into their family like you're one of their own,” she said.

In McGinnis’s 14 years as a NICU nurse, she has worked with premature babies as small as one pound, and she was also one of the primary nurses caring for formerly conjoined twins Knatalye and Adeline Mata before they were surgically separated in 2015 at Texas Children’s Hospital.

Cases in the NICU can be intense, McGinnis said, but as in the case with the Mata family, they also often have good outcomes.

“It really shocks you how resilient these babies are and how they bounce back from whatever they're fighting against,” she said. “Your heart really goes out to them.”

McGinnis has been a NICU nurse since 2002, taking two leaves for the births of her sons, now 5 and 7. In that time, she’s seen the importance of the BSN degree grow, particularly in light of a 2011 Institute of Medicine report that called for 80 percent of the nursing workforce to hold BSN degrees by 2020.

She holds an associate’s degree from San Jacinto College and always wanted to go on for her bachelor’s, but the timing was never right. When McGinnis was ready to take the next step, she decided that online education was not for her. She heard about UHCL’s RN to BSN program with its face-to-face curriculum specifically designed for working nurses to earn their bachelor’s degree. She joined the first cohort of students in fall 2014 and is now in her final semester.

“Texas Children’s has been really great about supporting my tuition and my schedule. My manager has been very supportive of me going back. This was the perfect time to do it,” she said. “I feel very fortunate that I came upon this program.”

McGinnis said the UHCL program isn’t just opening doors in her future – her interactions with classmates are also providing a support system and a community for today.

“You get to hear from all these different nurses; we’re all in the same situation. Most of us work full-time,” she said. “We’re all in this boat together and we can relate to each other. I’ve really enjoyed that.”

Assistant Professor and Program Director of UHCL’s RN to BSN program Karen Alexander, who holds a Ph.D. in Nursing Education, said those relationships are one of the program’s key strengths.

“Because our program is very diverse and delivered in a face-to-face setting, it promotes a student-centered learning environment that stimulates active learning. Students connect with one another as well as faculty,” she said. “We all work toward a common goal of life-long learning to raise the bar of excellence in nursing.”

Many of the students in the program are, like McGinnis, working nurses with years of experience who bring their stories and knowledge to the classroom to enhance everyone’s learning, Alexander said. Having a variety of specialties represented enhances this effect. Moreover, the diverse mix serves as a mentor-mentee experience for students who have just received their RN.

McGinnis said she was quickly drawn to the neonatal specialty during an extensive internship at St. Joseph Medical Center.

“I totally fell in love with it,” she said.

McGinnis often takes on the role of her patients’ primary nurse, an important piece of every patient’s care.

“You really get to know them and can become an advocate for them in terms of their plan of care,” she said, noting that she works closely with other medical professionals. “It’s really nice when you have a medical team that values the opinion of the nurse.”

Set to graduate this December, McGinnis is considering becoming a neonatal nurse practitioner, and she's also considered moving into a management role. Both goals require a BSN.

“Having the BSN will open more doors for me as far as where my career can go. I was really limited before that, stuck in one place. A lot of opportunities will come up because of this degree,” she said.

UHCL’s RN to BSN program offers face-to-face courses designed around the schedules and needs of working nurses. The degree can be completed in as little as three semesters for students enrolled full-time and seven semesters for students enrolled part-time. To enroll, students must have an associate’s degree or diploma in nursing and hold a Texas RN license. The program is also open to nurses who have an international nursing degree and hold a Texas RN license. To learn more about the program or how to apply, visit www.uhcl.edu/nursing or call 281-212-1668.