{"id":20535,"date":"2025-05-06T09:31:38","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T13:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/?p=20535"},"modified":"2025-05-06T09:31:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T13:31:39","slug":"commencement-2025-family-inspiration-propels-nursing-graduates-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/2025\/05\/06\/commencement-2025-family-inspiration-propels-nursing-graduates-career\/","title":{"rendered":"Commencement 2025: Family inspiration propels nursing graduate\u2019s career"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Darciah Costa, the URI College of Nursing Academic Excellence Award winner, to pursue career as cardiac nurse at Johns Hopkins<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darciah \u201cDarcy\u201d Costa was a high school student when her grandmother, Margarida, was nearing the end of her life in a nursing home after having lived for years with dementia. Costa, who helped care for her grandmother throughout her illness, witnessed a simple but profound interaction between Margarida and her nurses that left a lasting impression on the young student, and ultimately shaped the direction her future would lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy grandma loved, loved tea, specifically black tea, and specifically Tetley black tea,\u201d Costa said, noting the nursing home where her grandmother lived was under COVID-19 restrictions at the time. \u201cThat\u2019s not the tea they normally had at the facility, but the nurses always made sure to have that specific brand for her. Every time she drank some, you could see a little of her coming back. I like those little details of nursing, trying to see the little things that make people feel more like themselves at a time when they feel detached from themselves. Seeing the nurses, especially during the end of life, and how they treated her as a holistic person, really spoke to me. I wanted to do something similar for other people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t Costa\u2019s first introduction to nursing, as her mother, a cardiac care nurse, initially showed her what a dedication to health care looks like. Seeing that dedication in action with her \u201cVovo\u201d in the nursing home reinforced Costa\u2019s desire to follow in her mother\u2019s footsteps. \u201cNot only did they approach her with patience and kindness, but they tried to bring more of herself out, especially as she was losing more of herself as the disease progressed,\u201d Costa said. \u201cSo that really spoke to me and drove me to look into nursing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once her career direction was established, Costa set about deciding where to pursue her studies upon graduating from Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro, Massachusetts. Originally planning to seek in-state tuition in her native Massachusetts, Costa again looked to follow her mother\u2019s footsteps, heading to Kingston to visit the University of Rhode Island, where her mother studied in the College of Nursing. Costa\u2019s visit to the Kingston Campus and the support she received from the University after being named a Ryan Scholar\u2014which provides a full scholarship for exceptional students\u2014convinced Costa this was the place for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very community based, which helps with making connections and friendships, but also with networking and finding mentors,\u201d Costa said. \u201cI found that URI fosters that atmosphere so well. That was something I wanted to emphasize for my college career\u2014having a lot of different inspirations and opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Costa has taken full advantage of those opportunities, excelling in the classroom and the lab, and gaining experience from the interdisciplinary clinical rotations that are part of the college\u2019s curriculum. Having worked in multiple departments in several facilities\u2014including Rhode Island Hospital, Hasbro Children\u2019s Hospital, Bradley Hospital and Women & Infants Hospital\u2014Costa developed an interest in cardiac care nursing, as well as labor and delivery after witnessing a live birth. She has also taken part in research projects with Professor Susan Desanto-Madeya and Assistant Professor Erica Liebermann, with whom she studied national HPV vaccination rates and the barriers that may lower those rates, research she presented at the Eastern Nursing Research Society\u2019s annual conference in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Costa\u2019s exemplary efforts were rewarded with the College of Nursing\u2019s 2025 Academic Excellence Award, an honor she attributes not only to her hard work and the dedication of the college\u2019s professors, but also to a decision she made early in her college career to step outside her comfort zone and put herself front-and-center before visitors as a campus tour guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I first got here, I was very academically minded; I was a lot shyer my freshman year and I may have been limiting myself a little socially,\u201d Costa said. \u201cTour guiding connected me with so many different people, and made me more comfortable with myself and more confident in my speaking abilities. The Excellence Award definitely reflects the work I put in since freshman year. I have a deeper connection to it because I wouldn\u2019t have been able to do that without the connections I made by branching out more. I found the key to doing well academically is leaning on the support around you. I wouldn\u2019t have been able to do that if I was just academically focused, and not looking at anything else around me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Costa will continue branching out from her comfort zone after graduating with a Bachelor\u2019s of Science degree in nursing in May. Soon after commencement, she will be moving to Baltimore, Maryland, where she will begin her cardiac nursing career in the medical telemetry unit at Johns Hopkins Hospital. In the future, she hopes to add labor and delivery nursing to her resume, with an eye toward working in global maternal health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI definitely want to start as a bedside nurse, but I could see myself doing research and working abroad in global maternal health,\u201d Costa said. \u201cI\u2019d like to do some research with pregnancy complications, and how cardiovascular health in women can contribute to some pregnancy complications, especially in women already facing other disparities. I want my research to contribute directly to health policy to address these problems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To that end, Costa plans to pursue a Ph.D. in nursing in the future, which could eventually lead her back to URI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just found such a home and direction here. URI is a place where they take you as you are, but they push the limits you might have on yourself for what you can be in the future,\u201d Costa said. \u201cHaving that type of support and vision from people who are so established in their careers is very foundational to everything I\u2019ve been able to accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Darciah Costa, the URI College of Nursing Academic Excellence Award winner, to pursue career as cardiac nurse at Johns Hopkins Darciah \u201cDarcy\u201d Costa was a high school student when her grandmother, Margarida, was nearing the end of her life in a nursing home after having lived for years with dementia. Costa, who helped care for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1710,"featured_media":20536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20535"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20539,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20535\/revisions\/20539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}