Sara Price-Arora, ‘17

Hometown: Golden, Colorado 

Education: Bachelor of Arts from Whittier College; Master of Arts from Oregon State University 

YSN Specialty: Women’s Health/Midwifery 

After earning her master’s degree, Sara Price-Arora was pursuing her PhD in medical anthropology, executing field research in rural southern Rajasthan, a state in northern India. While there, Price-Arora realized that she craved more than conducting research. She loved observing the midwives teaching and empowering their patients, which inspired her to pursue clinical training. 

At the point she realized she wanted to be a midwife, Price-Arora felt she was too far behind in terms of her education and the prerequisites required for nursing programs. Just as she had given up her search, her advisor at Oregon State University told her about Yale University School of Nursing. “As I researched the program, I started to get really excited,” she remembers. “I loved the approach to clinical training, the international clinical opportunities, the faculty – and that GEPN would train students who did not have a background in the hard sciences.” 

Of her experiences thus far at YSN, Price-Arora notes that her greatest one happened while working with her first medical-surgical preceptor during an emergency situation with a patient. “I felt like an imposter most my time at YSN,” she explained. But, when her preceptor looked to her and calmly said, “Sara, this is your patient, you can do this”, she realized for the first time what she was actually doing and that she had the capacity to become a competent caregiver. 

Price-Arora has learned a lot about herself in her time at YSN. Not only was she a full-time student, but also a full-time mom to her eight-week-old baby. Her time outside of classes and clinical were spent with her daughter. “I think being a parent and a nursing student as cultivated a compassion for others I never knew I had,” she said. “I think that being compassionate to patients, other providers, and ourselves is so difficult in nursing, but can be as powerful as any treatment. 

In the short-term, she hopes to practice somewhere that she can utilize her language skills to help provide better care. In the long-term, Price-Arora hopes to establish a clinical site in India.