Working as a nursing assistant gave high school student a sense of purpose and pushed her to overcome academic struggles.
As a high school freshman, Aida Camey had vague plans to study business and perhaps work in a hotel. She knew little about careers in health care and never dreamed of pursuing one, not even after her mother pushed her to follow in her sister’s footsteps and attend RINI as a sophomore. “I was in the mindset of I’m just going for my parents, and I hope to transfer soon. So it really wasn’t in my plans,” said Camey.
That was Camey’s sophomore year. By her senior year, her RINI experience had persuaded her to pursue a future in nursing.
The road to that decision didn’t come without difficulties. Camey described her first days at RINI as “very scary” because she had yet to make friends and the work was “ten times harder” than it had been her freshman year at her previous school. Despite her plans to transfer to another school, Camey applied herself and earned better grades than the year before.
“Once you know that you have to do good, it pushes you that extra mile,” said Camey. She attributes her work ethic to her Guatemalan parents’ influence but said the drive to succeed also came from within.
Camey, who is bilingual, struggled the most in her college-level anatomy class, but she said her Spanish skills actually helped with the vocabulary because some terms resemble Spanish words and meanings. Still, the level of memorization required for the class sent Camey to her school counselor on a regular basis. “I would go into her room already with tears in my face saying I couldn’t no more,” said Camey, “and she would tell me, ‘Aida, you can do this. I believe in you, and I know you’re going to do it.’”
Camey’s counselor also advised her on how to talk to her teacher about her struggles. “She would help me to go to my teacher for anatomy [a University of Rhode Island course] and ask him what things I can do in order to learn the material better.” As a result, she sought help after school from the teacher, who provided additional support and offered test-taking strategies. Camey earned a B in the class and said, “I am very proud of myself that I did that.”
Junior year, Camey learned to care for older adults while training to be a certified nursing assistant (CNA), and the seeds of interest in a health care career were planted. “You go from knowing how to do perineal care, from how to put their shirt on from the bad arm to the good arm, and how to transfer them from bed to a wheelchair,” Camey said. “Getting to know that made me see that there’s many opportunities to help. There’s many people that need help.” The realization changed how Camey saw her schoolwork. “That’s what made me continue,” she said.
But the real turning point came when Camey’s field trip to a labor and delivery department coincided with her senior research project on preterm birth. At the hospital, she saw the nursery, a delivery room, and the lights and instruments used to care for and clean newborns immediately after birth. The tour resonated with her because her older sister, who had also become a CNA since graduating from RINI, was a caregiver for a friend’s infant at home. In helping to care for that child, Camey had already developed an interest in babies.
During the research project, Camey learned about low birthweight, infant mortality, and malnutrition. She considered the project “an opportunity to see whether I am ready and able to go into the medical field.” She added, “Once I did that research on preterm babies, it made me want to do that more.”
After serving as a translator for her mother and grandmother in health care situations, Camey understood the value she could bring as a nurse able to communicate directly with Spanish-speaking patients. She said her mother, who is a stay-at-home mom, and father, who cleans office buildings, are very proud of her career choice.
Camey will attend the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) in the spring of 2021 while continuing to live at home with her parents, grandmother, and sister. RINI and CCRI have recently partnered to create a seamless college pathway for a cohort of RINI graduates. Participants can earn an associate’s degree in two years and receive automatic acceptance to the University of Rhode Island’s hybrid RN-to-BSN program. This pathway is designed to allow students to earn their bachelor’s degree in nursing in less than four years with minimal tuition cost. Camey plans to take part in this program and become the first among four siblings to graduate from a four-year college. In the long term, she hopes to become a neonatal nurse or a midwife in Providence.
Looking back on her journey, Camey said, “Even though RINI is a hard school, at the end it’s worth every single little thing, like the cries, the wanting to leave. At the end it opened up my eyes to seeing I should care for others.”