Dawn Franklin has watched her mother build a lifelong career in nursing. On Saturday, the 26-year-old will start building her own career when she graduates with a bachelor’s degree from the UNMC College of Nursing.
The ceremony falls during National Nurses Week, which begins May 6 and culminates May 12 on the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of the nursing profession.
“I always knew I wanted to do something in the health field,” Franklin said. “I would read my mom’s books and go to the library. I was told I had to go to college.”
Franklin’s mother, Cheryl Willis, knew the value of education. A psychiatric and mental health nurse practitioner, Willis earned her master’s degree from UNMC in 1999. As a nurse practitioner, Willis can diagnose and treat patients, as well as prescribe medication.
A 1993 graduate of Central High School, Franklin earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1999. She enrolled in the Methodist School of Nursing and attended a research colloquium at UNMC with her mother when Mary McNamee, Ph.D., assistant dean of the UNMC College of Nursing, approached and recruited her into the UNMC nursing program.
Franklin’s decision to pursue nursing had been cemented earlier by a delivery room nurse who inspired her to follow in her mother’s footsteps.
“While going to UNO, I watched my sister have a baby and was impressed by the nurse,” Franklin said. “I saw the doctor come in for what seemed like five minutes. It was the nurse who was constantly there.”
Like mother, like daughter
During nursing school, Franklin has learned how much nurses affect people’s lives.
“Nursing is very people-focused,” she said. “You need to include everyone in the care plan.”
Franklin became a certified nursing assistant after her first semester at UNMC. She then applied as a home health aide and worked her way through school.
She considered focusing on obstetrics and gynecology in nursing, but has since gained an interest in mental health. “People are so interesting, and I have a good sense of humor,” she said. “I try to help people. It’s good to see when they get better.”
Her mother agrees. Willis has worked as a staff nurse, nursing supervisor and clinic coordinator of an adult and teen psychiatric unit. She currently works for Alegent Health System psychiatric services for geriatrics. She’s worked in psychiatry since 1976.
Willis scored high in maternal and child and psychiatric mental health on her nursing licensure test, but there were no obstetric jobs when she graduated, so she got a job as a psychiatry nurse.
“I’ve always liked listening to people,” Willis said. “I had to learn how to become a very good listener — to find out exactly what someone is saying.”
Love of learning
Learning is a family affair for mother and daughter.
Growing up in Omaha, Willis, 50, remembers reading book after book. “After I got my chores done at home, I’d go to the library, be there all day then go home and read,” Willis said.
After graduating from Central High School, she earned an associate degree in nursing in 1975 from the College of St. Mary and a bachelor’s degree in 1987. She also attended Creighton University for a time. She held a job throughout her college years.
Her parents had an influence in her career decision, just as she has had on her daughter.
“My mom and dad lived during the Depression,” Willis said.”They instilled in me and my brothers that education was important and that it was something no one could ever take from you. Someone told me once that once you stop learning, you’re dead.”
Willis was a volunteer at the VA hospital during junior high. After she married, she worked as a hospital nursing assistant and was befriended by a nurse who encouraged her to go to nursing school.
Willis recently celebrated her 26th anniversary with Alegent Health System.
Franklin, on the other hand, is just getting started.
Lean on me
Although Willis has provided moral support, advice and ideas for her daughter throughout nursing school, Franklin hasn’t always taken her mother’s advice.
“I’d come up with these ideas for project topics or something,” said Willis, shaking her head.
“Outdated,” Franklin says, reminding her mother of the time and generation gap. “All her books in the basement are outdated.”
Both women believe it is imperative that more people of diverse backgrounds consider nursing as a profession.
“The world is changing,” Willis said. “In all health-care settings, we have patients of various backgrounds. If you can get a patient to relate to you, it might help them be more compliant.”
Mentoring programs are needed to make people aware of the jobs in nursing, Franklin said, as well as a greater emphasis on math and science early on.
Meanwhile, Willis is proud of her daughter because she has paved her own way.