The Explorers
Walk along with us and explore the steps University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences students take on their journey to discovering their education, careers and themselves.
Continuing the legacy
“You meet these people at some of the worst days of their life, when they’re super scared, right before surgery. You’re able to put a smile on their face or give them some medicine to ease their pain or anxiety and then tell them that it’ll be over before they know it, and you’ll be right there when they wake up.”
Adrian Bermudez
In the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, when most people were doing everything they could to avoid the disease, Adrian Bermudez signed up to go to the front lines as a travel nurse. His mother, also a nurse, was treating COVID-19 patients in a medical intensive care unit (ICU) in Manhattan, and he raised his hand to work by her side.
Bermudez, who is from East Brunswick, New Jersey, received his BSN degree at the University of Pittsburgh in 2019 and then spent two years working in the cardiothoracic ICU at UPMC Presbyterian. He is in the doctor of nurse anesthesia program (DNP) at the School of Nursing and plans to graduate in the fall of 2024.
“Nurse anesthetists are advanced practice providers who are experts in administering anesthesia in a variety of settings,” Bermudez said. “They monitor the patient in the operating room while they’re getting surgery. They administer medications that keep the patient’s heart rate and blood pressure at safe levels. They’re responsible for waking the patient up after surgery and making sure they don’t feel any pain or remember anything during their surgical procedure.”
He is a founder of the Men in Nursing club at Pitt, working to provide a supportive community for male nursing students and professionals to connect, share experiences and offer mentorship to one another.
The First Step:
Motivation
“I had surgery on my shoulder when I was 12 years old. That was the first time I was really in a hospital setting, just being around numerous people in the health care field: doctors, physical therapists, nurses and nurse anesthetists,” said Bermudez. “That was the first experience that really motivated me to pursue a career in health care, to help others.
Bermudez continued, “I was a pretty avid baseball player growing up. And it was just an overuse injury where I threw out my shoulder from playing. That kind of derailed my future sports career—I won’t be playing Major League Baseball anytime soon.”
The Second Step:
Legacy
Bermudez’s grandmother is the director of nursing at a nursing home, and his mother is an ICU nurse.
“They were the primary role models in my life. They introduced me to their career and assured me that it was an option that I could pursue,” Bermudez says.
His mother’s stories caught his attention. “What was appealing to me was the acuity of the patients that she took care of every day. And the relationships she would develop not only with her coworkers but with the patients and the patients’ families.”
At the start of the pandemic, “when she was still in New York, and I was still in Pittsburgh, she would tell me stories about how it was really bad over there compared to here. And after a couple of months, I thought that I had to be on the front lines with her.”
While the hospital where his mother worked, NewYork-Presbyterian, would not have allowed her to be his supervisor, he was able to work with her because he was contracted through a separate agency. “About half my shifts were with her, where we were seeing each other and working side by side,” Bermudez said.
“In the beginning, it was a little weird because all of her coworkers had gone to my first birthday party,” Bermudez laughed.
“One night that sticks out in my head was when she was a charge nurse. A patient had unfortunately suffered a cardiac arrest. I was there giving chest compressions, and she was there running the code.”
The Third Step:
Leadership
“I had numerous male role models in my life who encouraged me to go into the nursing profession and made me realize that it was a viable option for me,” Bermudez said. “Even when I was here in undergrad, I had a lot of male role models in my four years here, and they really inspired me and motivated me and pushed me.”
He cited John O’Donnell, director of the Nurse Anesthesia Program, professor and chair, Department of Nurse Anesthesia, School of Nursing, as an inspiration.
“We kind of had the male nursing club when I was here for undergrad. But it never stayed consistent, and I graduated and then it kind of fell through,” Bermudez explained. “So I made it a point when I started graduate school to try to start the club again officially and keep it going here for years to come.”
To restart the Men in Nursing club, “I went into this with Dr. Julius Kitutu, an associate dean here at the School of Nursing. So far, we’ve had a few meetings, and numerous people have been interested. And I’m happy to say that I think it’s going to be around for a long time.
“Even now, nursing can be seen as predominantly a female profession,” Bermudez said. “And I think just being able to convince one other male that they can go into nursing will be worthwhile, and even to just be a role model for the undergraduate male nurses here at the School of Nursing, trying to kind of guide them in the right path and get them interested in working in ICU or going into anesthesia.”
The Next Steps
“We hope to go to a few local high schools in the area to try to talk to not only the males, but everyone about the nursing profession, the different pathways to becoming a nurse, different areas that you’re working as a nurse and also the different graduate programs that are available in the nursing profession.
“When I have clinicals now in the hospitals, it’s a very fulfilling job in my eyes, because you meet these people at some of the worst days of their life when they’re super scared right before surgery. You’re able to put a smile on their face or give them some medicine to ease their pain or anxiety and then tell them that it’ll be over before they know it, and you’ll be right there when they wake up. And then seeing them after the procedure, and telling them that they didn’t have any pain, it’s really fulfilling.”
About the School of Nursing
The School of Nursing is dedicated to providing students with the educational foundation to conduct evidence-based practice, engage in scholarly activities and translate knowledge to improve the delivery of health care. Our graduates possess appraisal and thinking skills, sophisticated clinical practice knowledge, and the ability to integrate research to provide thorough patient care.
