I didn’t grow up dreaming of scrubs or stethoscopes.
I grew up in a flower shop – quite literally. My parents were entrepreneurs who imported orchids from around the world. We travelled, we arranged, we worked with our hands. I learned business by doing, managing inventory and people while my parents were travelling the world to find endangered plant species. I was 17 when my dad gave me the keys to the shop and said ‘We’ll be back in 2 weeks. You’ll figure it out’. And I did. I could wire a boutonnière before I could drive.
Later, I taught in a Montessori school and I loved the idea that there’s no single way to learn, no single path to growth. I liked colouring outside the lines and I still do.
But life, in its mess and beauty, had other plans.
My mother had a massive stroke and they amputated her left leg. We found her one morning, alone, disoriented, and blood on the floor, evidence of a fall the night before. So we made the executive decision to take her care into our own hands and we brought her home to our townhouse, where we had a newborn and a toddler and barely enough space for ourselves. There was no discharge plan. No care team but we pulled it together quickly. It was me, my husband, and a voice that said “we’d figure it out.”
My mother, Gay, with my daughter
I learned to pack an open amputation wound with one hand while nursing a baby with the other. We scrubbed in at the kitchen sink. We turned the living room into rehab.
Then, my father lost his job and my husband picked up a second job so we could care for everyone. And all of us – three generations under one roof – made it work. Not because we had the resources, but because we didn’t have a choice. I did what women have done forever – I held it all together.
Eventually, we needed a bigger house – more room for the wheelchair, the kids, the chaos. We moved out to the suburbs. One day, my dad looked around and said, “There’s no real bakery here.”
So, in true Stanley style, we opened one.
We named it Teresinas, after my great-grandmother. We laid the kitchen tile ourselves and wrote the business plan at the kitchen table.
My dad was a chef and I said, “Dad, there’s just one problem – we need a pastry chef.”
He looked at me and said, “I’m looking at her. You’ll figure it out.”
So I did. Back then there was no YouTube, no online courses I could take. My only experience was cooking dinners for the family. So, I turned to books, late nights and a lot of burned sugar. I taught myself wedding cakes, croissants, cream puffs. I’d nurse the baby in the back room, then come out and finish the chocolate glaze.
Unfortunately, the market had other plans. We held on as long as we could, but after two years, we closed the doors and filed for personal bankruptcy.
At the time, my son was attending a local Montessori school. I loved what it stood for, the freedom to learn differently, to follow your curiosity, and to do things your own way. So I started helping out. Firstly, with the books and then in the classroom as a teacher.
And then my son got sick.
On his eighth birthday, after the guests had left, he told me his throat was sore. What started as strep spiraled into a rare, near-fatal complication. Twenty-five days in the hospital, seven chest tubes, a pericardial window, two stints in ICU and the kind of experience no parent wants to go through.
My husband, Matt, and I read everything we could about his condition and we asked questions to everyone who came into the room. We became part of the care team, not by title, but by necessity, because that’s what you do when it’s your kid.
One day, a nurse looked over at me and said, “Are you in healthcare?”
My Dad, Stanley, with my children
After we got home, I started to question what the future would hold for me… What did I want to do when I grew up… A year later, my dad passed away from interstitial pneumonia. I can only be hit in the head so many times before I realise this is what I was supposed to be doing.
I applied to one program, Mass General’s direct-entry nursing track. I hadn’t taken a science class in over a decade. I had no clinical background. But I wanted to be where care was real where people show up when things fall apart.
And from there I kept going – I was a student nurse, I did night shifts (sometimes my shifts would go from night to day shifts and I’d be running on a few hours of sleep). NP training. Oncology. GI Oncology. Administrative roles. Cancer centers. A cross-country move. A pandemic. And now, leading 9,000 nurses across Duke Health.
People ask me about career strategy, or confidence, or how I knew. I didn’t. I just stayed in the hard rooms as I figured it out. I listened to the part of me that couldn’t not care.
But looking back, every step from running the florist shop at 17, laying the bakery floor tiles, the failed business, the Montessori school, and the wound care in my living room – it’s all shaped the way I lead today.
I lead from the ground, from the mess, and from the part of me that doesn’t back away when things get hard.
And I’ve learned that you don’t need a five-year plan to make a difference. You need a reason., a willingness to learn, and a belief that you’ll figure it out.
So, I end by saying to those reading this: believe in the unbelievable, work through the impossible, and if you fail, gather yourself and try again.
That’s the work, that’s the way, and that’s how we lead a little differently.
So grateful for my incredible family
