Nursing professor is teacher of the year finalist

The Ed Foundation of Yuma has narrowed down student nominations to just a handful.

Ms. Fabiana Bowles, Professor of Nursing is one of Arizona Western College’s 2019 teacher of year finalists.

In an ever changing career such as nursing, teaching students to embrace technology and the resources available to them is an important part of the job.

” In the classroom, they go through why things happen, and at clinicals they get to apply that with an actual situation ” says Ms. Bowles.

And it’s this hands on approach her students say stick with them from the moment they graduate, to when they get their first job in the medical field.

Over the past 14 years, she’s been balancing her week working as a nurse at a local hospital, and teaching at Arizona Western College where she is an alum.

But to get to this point in her life, it wasn’t all smooth sailing.

Ms. Bowles says ” After graduation, I had a daughter very early on, I was 16, it seemed like my life would be over so to speak, but I always wanted to do healthcare, i wasn’t sure if i wanted to do nursing per say , but i thought being a CNA was a start ”

But she had a goal, and stuck to it.

” The CNA instructor would guarantee you a job if you were in the top three, because I needed a job, once I did that, I realized that nursing was for me then i pursued the nursing career ” .