School of Nursing has first father-son alumni combo.
The wide-eyed 14-year-old boy had just seen his father save a life.
He had watched as his father worked, quickly but calmly, to use a defibrillator to literally shock a dying person back to life.
The experience sealed a resolve. “Dad, when I grow up, I want to be a nurse just like you.”
And that is exactly what Daniel Q. Smith did, following in his father’s footsteps to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Nursing.
At graduation last week, Daniel and his father, Tim Smith, became the first father-son alumni combo of the nursing school.
“We’ve had plenty of mother-daughter, sister-sister, sister-brother and even mother-son combinations before, but this is our first father-and-son pairing of graduates,” said Lora Lacey-Haun, R.N., Ph.D., Dean of the school.
Daniel and Tim represent the changing face of nursing, and nursing education, in more ways than just gender. Both earned their bachelor’s degrees online from remote locations, as working nurses who started their careers with associate degrees earned at a local community college.
Reviewed 2013-01-25