Letters to the Editor

Journey Toward Healing, …Forgiveness

It’s difficult to walk five feet at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing without tripping over an amazing life story. The trick, often, is finding a way to share it. Take Owen Smith, Accel. ’14. Cool guy. In fact, it was just above freezing the day we met him for a photo/video shoot. But the photographer just loved the light in the courtyard, so … there you go.

When, mercifully, a noisy delivery truck forced us into a short break, we ushered Owen into the Student House to warm him up. A guitar sat nearby as we chatted (not his). He picked it up, tuned it a moment, then launched into a beautiful, bilingual song he wrote about Belize. More beautiful is that Owen can pick up and play a guitar at all, having survived life-threatening injuries from a machete attack in that nation while in the Peace Corps.

Owen Smith’s genuine gratitude as his journey toward healing and forgiveness continues and his career in nursing officially begins cannot be captured in a single-page magazine feature. So watch for the video on our website, and check out our new nursing blog, The Beat, where we’ll be expanding on his and other great stories from the magazine and sharing other stuff you might not otherwise hear or read about at all. You can even join in the storytelling. Please do. And thanks, as always, for reading.

Steve St. Angelo
Editor

The Mentor’s Reward

Which one of us doesn’t need guidance and support as we pursue our choices in life?  There is a need to be filled by each of us. I was very fortunate throughout my professional career as I continued to learn and to expand my sphere of influence. However, no time was more rewarding than the two years in 1962 and 1963 when I was an Instructor in the School of Nursing in Osler and Advisor to the Class of 1963. It was a time before “mentoring” became the word for guiding or helping someone with less experience.

The rewards of a mentoring relationship are very real for the mentor as he or she strives to be a role model and to impart the knowledge and skills gained from experience. Often I was not fully aware of the impact on others until later, when I received acknowledgement in some tangible way–a book with a meaningful inscription or a note of thanks when our paths changed direction. Such was the case at the 50th reunion of the Class of 1963. I was welcomed as a part of the class, which said more to me than words could ever express.

I also experienced many formal mentoring opportunities as an Instructor in the School of Nursing, a preceptor to graduate students, and an administrator in a hospital. The end result, I hope, was growth for both the mentee and myself and for nursing as a whole.

Helping someone navigate the nursing career path is reward in itself. Be a mentor and teach, support, facilitate, and challenge your mentee toward total professional and personal development. You will both be the beneficiaries of the experience.

Margaret (Peg) Royer Kostopoulos ’59
Willow Street, PA