Her Story
About Jennifer
My nursing journey began in 2013 when I graduated from Hawaii Pacific University with my Bachelor's of Science in Nursing. As a small island girl from Hawaii, I took a brave step and moved to the East Coast to start my career. I spent 8 years as a neonatal ICU bedside nurse working the night shift from 7pm to 7am, first at a children's hospital in Philadelphia and then at Inova children's hospital in Virginia, working on a 108-bed unit. My passion has always been education, so after 2 years of building my foundational knowledge, I began preceptoring new nurses and seasoned nurses coming to our facility, earning recognition as Preceptor of the Year and Preceptor of the Quarter. During COVID, I became a travel nurse for 2 years, working locally in Virginia and spending about a year and a half in California. During this challenging time, I also pursued my Master's of Nursing with a focus in Health Informatics from Grand Canyon University, which I call my 'COVID baby' because I managed to complete it during such a stressful period while traveling to hospitals in dire need. After getting married, my husband encouraged me to find better work-life balance after a decade of night shifts, so I transitioned to the corporate world as a clinical advisor for a medical device company for 2 years, where I learned the financial and budgeting aspects of healthcare while still working with patients and healthcare teams. Now I serve as a nursing consultant for the Defense Health Agency, where I've found the perfect intersection of my passions: helping others, technology, and teaching. In this role, I review and accredit continuing education courses for all military treatment facilities across the Air Force, Navy, Army, and Space Force. We accredit more than 10,000 courses a year. What makes my position special is that I not only perform the clinical subject matter expert review of course content, but because of my informatics background, I also code and build the front-facing user interfaces for the courses in our learning management system. This gives me a high-level overview and ensures consistency from the start of the review to the end product. I also troubleshoot our continuing education management system and work with vendors when issues arise. My role combines clinical education facilitation, information technology, collaboration with internal teams and planners, and managing organizational mailboxes for clinical and technical questions. I recently earned my Clinical Education Accreditation Data Management Certification within my first year in this role, which felt amazing as a novice in this specific field.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Jennifer
01What do you attribute your success to?
First and foremost, I attribute my success to the high and mighty man above. I can't do all of this and have reached all of my accomplishments and education and be where I'm at without His grace. I always refer to the verse Philippians 4:13, 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.' And then the support of my family has been essential to everything I've achieved.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was 'don't be scared.' One of my mentors told me to try things, not just once or twice, but give it three tries. When I was a new grad NICU nurse facing the scary task of putting an IV in a baby that was only 2 pounds, as small as the length of a dollar with veins tinier than my finger, my instructor said 'try it once. You get 3 tries. And once it's 3 tries and you couldn't get it, then I will step in. Don't allow yourself to say you can't do it.' I learned to do some self-reflection and tell myself it's okay if I don't get it right the first or second time, I have a third time, and if I can't get it right, I have support around me and I can recruit them to help. Never be scared to try, and always ask for help. Asking for help doesn't mean you're stupid. Asking for help means that you are aware of your capabilities, and you are willing to learn if you don't know how to do it.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge right now is getting everybody on board with a new standardized way of doing things, especially as we're integrating AI into my field of work. It's the resistance to change, particularly when it comes to technology updates and upgrades. My biggest challenge is working with people on the opposite side who are totally saying no to the adoption of technology, and helping them understand that this is meant to work for everyone. Being a catalyst for change requires understanding and patience to work with many different personalities and backgrounds. I could explain something to a technical person and they may have questions and hesitancy that are completely different from our clinical staff. Clinical staff ask 'how is this gonna affect my workflow?' while technical people ask 'how will code A match with Code B?' Being able to meet halfway and get everybody to understand the objectives so that everyone gets buy-in is probably the hardest part.
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