Suzanne M. Moser, ‘04

It was thanksgiving 2000 in San Francisco and I was at work when I received an email that said, “It is not too late to apply for the 2001 school year. This holiday season, give yourself the gift of education.” I took this to be a sign. 

It was the motivation I needed to complete the nursing school applications I had begun. I figured, as I put away the application for the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, I could apply to creating writing programs next year when my nursing applications were laughed out of offices, all over the east coast. It wasn’t too late, although at 35, I did find myself to be one of the older students (chronologically only) in the fall of 2001. 

We, fifty students of varied backgrounds from International Refugee Worker to Pharmaceutical Bioengineer, found ourselves together in September, sharing both hope and sorrow, while the world around us changed profoundly. Fortunately we came here, to pursue a profession whose center point is the caring of others. It is this model of caring that we have come to know and leave now, changed and privileged by this profession, by this University, to care for others. I certainly didn’t know when I was responding to that Thanksgiving email how great a gift or how great a responsibility it would be. I am thankful for and humbled by those who I have met and cared for during these three years. My greatest hope is that we might all, by our caring, simply - change the world profoundly - by nursing. 

Suzanne Moser with Janna Stephan and Shobna Shukla received their MSN degrees in May of 2004. The photo above was taken during the students’ community health rotation in the summer of 2002 in Tunapuna, Trinidad & Tobago where the students assisted local healthcare providers in caring for children living with HIV/AIDS. 

Suzanne M. Moser, RN 
Pediatric Nurse Practitioner