Commencement: Juggling family and work as an RN, UH Hilo alumna returns to her alma mater for doctor of nursing practice degree
With two kids, a husband and a full time job, Kristle Akau Giraudy made a plan. At UH Hilo’s commencement on Saturday, the dream comes true: a doctor of nursing practice degree.
By Sophia Kim-O’Sullivan/UH Hilo Stories.
With deep appreciation for her supportive advisors and faculty, Kristle Akau Giraudy will receive her doctor of nursing practice degree from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo at Saturday’s commencement ceremonies.
Giraudy started the doctoral degree program with two UH nursing degrees already under her belt: an associate degree in nursing from Kapiʻolani Community College (2020) and a bachelor of science in nursing from UH Hilo (2021).
“I always did want to keep learning, because I’m a lifelong student,” says Giraudy. “I love learning and there’s so much to learn in healthcare.”
Call to nursing
Giraudy was born and raised in Kailua, Oʻahu, graduating from Sacred Hearts Academy in 2003. She decided to study nutrition at the University of Nevada, Reno, but soon returned home to start working at a hospital where she noticed the “intimate care that nurses provided.” That experience affected her deeply.
“I felt called to nursing,” she says, finding the transition from nutrition to nursing easy. “In nutrition there’s a lot of health-related courses, so it was a really nice, natural progression.”
The Kapiʻolani Community College associates degree in nursing (ADN) program taught her practical nursing skills. She learned how to pull up medications in a syringe, cap things, put in a foley, and other procedural tasks. “It was a short yet rigorous, high-learning curve program,” she says.
She also learned how to overcome challenges as she plowed through her studies during the pandemic. Initially classes were conducted in-person with masks before being moved completely online. Giraudy talks about her experiences doing virtual simulated pediatric clinicals and charting simulations in this podcast interview produced by the Lippincott Nursing Center.
The associate degree in nursing prepared Giraudy well for further education. It also qualified her to work full-time as a registered nurse as she pursued her bachelor’s in nursing at UH Hilo, giving her firsthand experience that complemented her coursework.
Bridge to UH Hilo
As she made the transition from the community college to UH Hilo, Giraudy discovered many layers of support that helped her reach her goals.
She credits the UH nursing bridge program — that allows students to seamlessly move from the associate degree at the community college to a bachelor’s degree at the four-year campus — with providing her and other nursing professionals with the strategy to “get to the level of nursing they want to obtain.”
She also greatly appreciates the supportive UH Hilo advisors and faculty along with the flexibility of UH Hilo’s nursing programs that helped her achieve her goals while working full time and raising two children.
Once enrolled at UH Hilo in the bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) program, Giraudy also appreciated the coursework being online and asynchronous. This allowed her to work in her own community at Kailua’s Castle Hospital and complete coursework on her own time.
Her UH Hilo coursework improved on what she had already learned through her associate’s degree, teaching her about the hierarchy of evidence and scientific studies behind her everyday practical nursing skills.
“My BSN taught me evidence-based practice, of asking ʻWhat does the research say?’ and letting that guide how I treat my patients,” she says.
After completing her BSN, Giraudy initially wanted to take a break to focus on her job and family. “I have young children and a husband, and all they’ve seen is me behind a laptop,” she says. However, UH Hilo Instructor of Nursing Bobbie Elisala who serves as doctor of nursing practice co-coordinator, encouraged her to keep going. “She told me, ‘Kristle, don’t stop. Just keep going. You won’t regret it,'” she says.
After successfully tackling the application process (she praises Associate Professor of Nursing Patricia Hensley for guiding her through the process), Giraudy entered UH Hilo’s doctor of nursing program in fall of 2022. She also credits Hensley with good advice on classes, matriculation, and how to “work smarter, not harder.” Another huge help was nursing instructor Elisala making sure Giraudy and other students in her cohort, who were located throughout the state, were able to find clinical placements at hospitals local to them. “Things like that are huge when you’re working and studying at the same time,” says Giraudy.
UH Hilo’s doctor of nursing practice (DNP) is a practice-focused degree. Students participate in lectures, seminars, laboratory simulations, and site visits to rural communities, and also are given research opportunities; the program culminates in a practice inquiry project. At the conclusion of their program, each doctoral candidate emerges competent in the essentials of doctoral education, is prepared for their specialty role as an individual health care provider, and is trained for leadership roles within the larger health care system.
“The program is focused on culturally congruent treatment that is holistic in nature and derived towards the rural population, which is what we have here in Hawaiʻi, lots of rural areas,” she says. “We engage questions like, ʻHow do we improve access to healthcare?’”
Giraudy’s practice inquiry project, “Heal the Healers: Implementing a Resiliency Program to Combat Nurse Burnout,” focuses on addressing acute care bedside nurse burnout through incorporation of a six-week evidence based program focusing on mindfulness.
“I had eight participants and after implementation there was a statistical significant decrease in burnout scores of participants,” she says. “Nurse burnout is a very prevalent issue globally, but also locally. This project offers hope in mitigating this detrimental issue.”
With appreciation for the unique focus of UH Hilo’s DNP program — direct care of individual clients, transcultural nursing, management of care for rural populations, administration of nursing systems, and development and implementation of health policy — Giraudy notes that her coursework taught her well on how to see patients holistically, how to assess them correctly, and how to design affective treatment plans.
Giraudy also notes the UH Hilo program prepares its students to become family nurse practitioners whose range is from “womb to tomb” with nurses treating pregnant women and newborn babies to working with geriatric hospice patients, thus giving her autonomy to practice with a broader scope. She says the program has also prepared her well should she decide to go into academia to conduct research or teach as a clinical instructor or university faculty.
“The program teaches us how to be leaders in the field, whichever sector we decide to lead in,” she says.
Unique insight
Currently, Giraudy is working as a telemetry nurse for acute patient care. “It’s a crazy setting. Life or death and high intensity,” she says.
But through her studies, she developed an interest in switching over to primary care, where she sees potential in preventative treatment plans.
“Through some of my clinical placements, I’ve discovered how impactful a nurse practitioner can be in making that connection and changing somebody’s life. There are major opportunities in primary care, educating patients to the appropriate level so that they are engaged and excited to take the lead in their care,” she says.
She says that collaborative, high-quality care can help prevent patients from ever reaching acute care wards. “So many of the patients I see are coming in with heart attacks and strokes caused by modifiable risk factors,” she observes.
With the belief that the healthcare system needs a rehaul, Giraudy again applies her love of learning now coupled with the knowledge and skill that come from earning advanced degrees. She has deep concern for a system that’s not working as well as it could.
“As nurse practitioners, we have a very unique insight into what healthcare and healthcare delivery can look like,” she says. “We’re very empathetic and patient-centered.”
It is now her goal to “improve access to healthcare through innovative healthcare delivery” by engaging patients in their own preventative care.
Learn more about UH Hilo’s School of Nursing.
Story by Sophia Kim-O’Sullivan, a graduate student in library science and information at UH Mānoa.
