Published January 30, 2025
BY AVERY PALSHAW
Upon completing high school in 2008, Cass Hanson wasn’t sure what career pathway she wanted to take. After experimenting with several pathways and not finding the right fit, the Carmel High School graduate stumbled into the field of nursing and found a passion for it. Now working 12-hour night shifts at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, Hanson is a registered nurse on the medical surgical floor and says that she loves making a difference in others’ lives.
As a Point Loma Nazarene University student, Gianna Mangiapane will get to work hands-on with patients. (courtesy of GIANNA MANGIAPANE)
Sporting scrubs and studying relentlessly, growing numbers of current and former CHS students explore the broad nursing field, some still working on becoming nurses with others actively tackling the demanding role.
The field of nursing today is extensive, with well over 29 million registered nurses worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. There are various nursing specialties, including cardiac, home health, midwife, travel and forensic nurses.
In an unconventional role, Emergency Room Clinical Nurse Educator Cristina Borek is in charge of ensuring new hires at CHOMP complete competency tests, advocating to the hospital for the needs of nurses and teaching nurses the skills required to provide safe and effective care. Because CHOMP is on the smaller side, Borek takes on both centralized education and unit-based education within the hospital.
“We are change agents, meaning that we try to find better ways of doing things based on evidence and research,” says the 2008 CHS alumni. “It’s a really changing, intense role.”
After receiving an associate’s degree in nursing from Hartnell College, Borek began working in the telemetry unit, then transferred to the ER, before eventually stepping into the role of a CNE.
“Not being at the bedside and not doing patient care is a little hard because I love it, but all the things we do in [clinical education] impacts patient care,” says Borek.
One unique trait of the medical industry is that many occupations correlate with one another, making for more opportunities for those interested in working within it. CHS alumni Sam Klemek, for instance, says he had planned on becoming a firefighter, but realized after high school that nursing was the right fit for him.
Registered Nurse Cass Hanson stresses the importance of finding a good support system when becoming a nurse. (courtesy of CASS HANSON)
“Nursing was a good jump because it was very similar [to firefighting] in some ways, but different in the ways that I wanted it to be,” explains the ER nurse of two years.
At CHOMP, Klemek usually covers four patients at a time, but the number can vary depending on how much immediate care one requires. The Samuel Merritt University graduate says that in the ER, there really is no typical day and that the dynamic is constantly changing, requiring nurses to be flexible in their roles.
Time management is highly important on the job, from knowing when to give patients medications to allocating time for unexpected twists.
“You’ll have a plan for the night, and then things come up and you have to know how to adjust while still staying on schedule with medications and procedures,” notes Hanson.
In addition to the challenges of becoming skilled and knowledgeable in this field, many nursing students and current nurses note the emotional toll that the job can have on one. 2023 CHS alum Gianna Mangiapane, a sophomore at Point Loma Nazarene University, takes developmental classes that are designed to give students personal tools to deal with the mental side of nursing.
“It’s a really hard profession to be in,” says Mangiapane. “You’re going to see a lot of stuff, and it can weigh on you mentally and also physically because you’re working really long hours.”
At the college level, students take courses such as chemistry, anatomy and physiology, pharmacology, biology, psychology, statistics and nursing fundamentals. The first two years of four-year schools tend to be more content-based learning, while in the last two years students have the opportunity to be more hands-on.
2024 CHS alum Julia Stenvick is a nursing student at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.
“After your sophomore year with Creighton, every nursing student has the opportunity to take a Certified Nurses Assistant test and then you can work as a CNA in a nursing home or in a hospital,” says Stenvick.
Many Carmel High School alumni now work at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. (courtesy of MONTAGE HEALTH)
For high school students looking to enter the medical field, current nursing students recommend getting ahead in courses like biology, anatomy and sports medicine.
“I got a lot of these [courses] done through dual-enrollment, so I didn’t have to take quite a few of them when I actually got to college,” says 2023 CHS graduate Anna Kroeker, a Sonoma State University sophomore.
Kroeker notes that working at home health care agencies and nursing facilities is a valuable way to gain interactive work experience in the medical field while still being in college.
While there are numerous internship opportunities for prospective nurses at the college level, high school students are also able to get involved with nursing through volunteer work. CHS junior Creedence Stiebel, who hopes to become a labor and delivery nurse, currently volunteers at CHOMP through their Junior Auxiliary Volunteer Opportunities, where guest speakers in the medical field teach about their own experiences.
“[I] volunteer twice a month, usually guiding patients to where they need to go in the hospital and bringing flowers and other stuff to people already in the hospital,” explains Stiebel.
As for senior Eugene Tupino, he grew up gaining experience in nursing due to living adjacent to a home care service run by his family. From talking to patients and tending to their needs like meals and medications, Tupino recalls that his passion for helping others only grew.
“Living by this home care, I see the tail end of most of these residents’ lives, and just seeing them lose their spark hurts, so hopefully as a nurse I can one day provide that youth for them,” says Tupino, who plans on enrolling in a nursing program at a four-year California university next year.
When asked what advice they would give to students looking to enter the field, current nurses stress the importance of persevering through obstacles, especially in such an ever-changing occupation.
“Even after graduating there’s going to be times when you feel like maybe you weren’t ready for it and that you’re in over your head,” says Klemek. “If you are self-aware enough to ask for help when you need it, and not think that you know everything, you’ll be safe.”
Though the road to this profession evidently comes with its challenges, for those willing to overcome rigor and with a true passion for helping others, CHS alumni say the outcomes are often rewarding.
