Heart for Cancer Patients

By Matt Hawkins

Courtney Nietzel ’18 turned a cancer encounter into a career-shaping nursing internship at Mayo Clinic. She spent long weekends in Iowa City beside her boyfriend, Reid, who battled blood cancer during her first year at Bradley.

Nietzel, a nursing major from Bettendorf, Iowa, intently watched University of Iowa Children’s Hospital staff care for Reid’s Burkitt’s Lymphoma on her visits. She noted how nurses listened to concerns and encouraged him when chemotherapy drained his energy. She observed doctors’ attention to detail and their ability to communicate complicated medical knowledge to the family. As a result, she became an unofficial expert in cancer care related to the disease, which is a rapidly growing tumor often linked to immune system deficiencies.

Nietzel rode the emotional rollercoaster with Reid’s family — initial shock and fear, followed by months clinging to hope, pain of watching a loved one suffer, and the joy of recovery. By the time he left the hospital at Easter 2015, she recognized her experience would be invaluable training wherever her medical career would take her.

Three years later, she walked back into a hospital with fear and uncertainty in the air; only this time she stood bedside as the nursing intern for Mayo Clinic’s hematology and oncology unit. She silently cheered while she assisted a woman with an intellectual delay fight cancer. Then, she cried when a man decided to return home on Hospice care because cancer treatment left his body in too much pain to bear.

“I never thought I’d go into oncology because it would be too emotional,” she said. “Now, I know I can put myself truly into patients’ shoes and help be that support for families while they fight through tough times.”

These experiences marked growth moments while Nietzel worked closely with nurses, doctors and specialists. As one of 53 interns selected from a pool of 800 — and the only intern in the unit — Nietzel became part of the Mayo family in 10 short weeks.

She learned to conduct daily assessments under the watchful eyes of supervisors, who also gave her a meaningful voice in treatment plan discussions with doctors and specialists. The experience helped her understand the “why” behind medication and therapy. This extra knowledge equipped Nietzel to translate complicated medical language to patients and families — much like she saw during her boyfriend’s hospital stay.

“It meant a lot to me that I wasn’t just a nursing student,” she said. “I felt honored and respected when they came to me for information and feedback. I saw how respectfully staff treated each other, and it was cool they treated me the same.”

The internship turned out to be a trial run for future employment, as Nietzel left Rochester with an offer to return after graduation.

“It’s a relief to have a job from a top hospital,” she said. “What I learned at Bradley and Mayo will make me a good nurse wherever I go. It was an honor to be selected for the experience, to showcase myself and then be wanted back.”