Norma's Journey

When I graduated from high school, I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician. I quickly decided that was not the route I wanted to go in. I am the 5th of 6 daughters born to a Mexican family and am a first generation of college graduates. My parents moved from “the Valley” to Mississippi to improve their children’s chances of having a better life, including an education.

They always encouraged and supported us to get our education and expected no less than all of us to get a college degree. My mother wanted one of her daughter to be a nurse but I never wanted to be a “nurse” because I thought as a woman, I was certainly just as good as any man and could be a “doctor”. I quickly changed my mind when my dorm roommate talked to me about nursing and how excited she was about it. She was telling me all the things that nurses could do and she was describing what I wanted to do. So, I changed my major, graduated with a B.S. in nursing from University of Mississippi, went on for a master's at Louisiana State University in New Orleans, and then a doctorate at the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

I can’t tell you my career trajectory is anywhere what I thought it would be. Life’s surprises sometimes hand you challenges and push you places you thought you would never go. I am always reminded of the saying “when a door closes, there is a window that opens”. That is how I ended up at Penn. Things I thought I was supposed to be doing to “live happily ever after” didn’t always work out and I took chances and risks. During my post-doctoral training at University of Virginia, Dr. Meleis offered me a job at Penn. Considering I had never driven any where north of Charlottesville, I took another huge risk! I never realized what wonderful opportunities I was going to have to promote my career. I am so happy that I took the challenge and became the nurse researcher and scientist that I am today.

I now do clinical trials research in sleep, particularly Restless Legs Syndrome, and research in Complementary and Alternative Medicine. I am so very fortunate to meet so many wonderful students at this school and mentor them, particularly minority students, into becoming scholars and researchers in nursing.