Most nursing students would probably be a little nervous about giving their professor an injection. Not Sarah Idowu.
“I wasn't really nervous at all,” she said. “I was more excited.”
Sarah is a nursing student at Estrella Mountain Community College (EMCC). She’s performing her clinicals at Abrazo West where she’s helping to administer the COVID-19 vaccine. On Jan. 21, one of her professors, Dr. Roni Collazo, just happened to be in her lane.
"Realizing that you are giving an injection to one of your nursing faculty could be a little unnerving, but Sarah administered the vaccination with excellent technique,” Dr. Collazo said. “It was a privilege to have her administer my vaccine.”
Sarah enrolled in the Nursing Program last fall, about five months after the pandemic hit, and feels more passionate about nursing now more than ever before.
“It has fueled my desire to help heal people, to comfort, and advocate for others,” she said. “COVID has caused so much pain and suffering in many people's lives, I definitely want to be a vessel used to end it.”
Sarah was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and came to the U.S. at the age of 2. Her parents moved here to accomplish their educational goals and for their church. They are the ones, she said, who inspired her to go into nursing.
“My mother was a CNA and caregiver, who also obtained her bachelor’s in computer science and my late father was a pre-med major, but honored his father's wishes and became a mechanical engineer,” she said. “I was a pre-med major, then soon discovered after my father's second stroke when I helped him with his medication and would give him daily blood glucose monitoring that I was meant to be a nurse.”
Despite spending her own career in the medical field, Sarah’s mother still worries for her safety because of the pandemic, but she’s also one of Sarah’s biggest supporters so she understands. Plus, Sarah reminds her of the “amazing” protocols that have taken place in EMCC’s Nursing Program to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“We are donned in full personal protection equipment, and they have made great measures of social distancing when in the lab,” she said. “They run a pretty good, tight ship over there.”
The wife and mother of seven said juggling school and home life isn’t easy but that her family encourages her on a daily basis to work hard and keep pushing forward.
“I pray and meditate a lot,” she said. “I do have times when I am very stressed, especially now in school, but that is when I step back and just pray and breathe.”
Estrella Mountain Community College’s (EMCC) Nursing Program offers smaller class sizes than large universities, affordable education, financial aid counseling, and application assistance. Students have the ability to obtain a bachelor’s degree in nursing while earning an associate degree through the Concurrent Enrollment Program (CEP). To learn more, go to https://www.estrellamountain.edu/programs/nursing.