My name is Delores Diaz. I am a non-traditional student who has spent my entire adult career in technology. I started out as a telephone operator and after working the shifts no one else wanted, putting in long hours and earning several promotions over the years, I ended up as a Senior Analyst assisting Government and large corporate clients with new technology. During the last five years with the company, I went through 4 lay-offs and in my most recent position my entire department was offshored. After training my offshore replacements for 6 months, I was laid off again. This took place at a time when many technology companies were downsizing and more people were competing for fewer jobs. After long consideration, I determined that it was time for me to follow my heart and go back to school to become a surgical technician. I come from a family of health providers and ever since I was a child I wanted to be in the operating room. The clinic on the reservation where I grew up had artwork on the walls, of our ancestors performing different primitive surgeries – removing broken limbs, removing teeth, even performing brain surgery, with sharpened sticks and stones. I would stare at those pictures and decided at a young age that was where I wanted to be. I watched every medical TV show to understand medicine. Two of my aunts were midwives. When I was a teenager, they would let me attend some of their births as a helper. I treasured those times. It was not glamorous; there were no sterile delivery rooms or a team of doctors and nurses standing by, just my aunt, the clinic doctor and me. I cleaned up a lot of bodily fluid, mopped a lot of floors, brought a lot of water and ice and witnessed the joy of a new life enter the world and being held close to their mother’s heartbeat, as well as witnessing the heartbreaking birth of infants born too early or too sick to survive and, in a couple of instances simply stood out of the way while my aunt and the doctor would move into urgent action when a new mother’s or newborn’s life was in danger. Then, life happened. Literally. In high school, I gave birth to my oldest daughter and was not able to go to college. When she was born, I looked in her eyes and promised her that she would have a better life, so when I graduated, my daughter and I moved to the city and got my first job with the local phone company. That was the beginning of my career in technology. After Telcom divestiture it stopped being just a local telephone company and grew into a quickly evolving technology behemoth. And, as computers caught on and began to be regularly used in business and in homes to keep people always connected, I grew with the industry. But I still always watched medical shows on TV and never lost that longing in my heart. I worked with the outsource career counselor provided. After interest, skill and aptitude tests, I decided that being a surgical technician is my goal. As a surgical technician, I will stand side by side with surgeons, nurses, anesthetists and circulating nurses, to assist with life changing, health improving and lifesaving operations. Ultimately, I will take my skills as a surgical technician and work with International Surgical Missions, Doctors Without Borders or Mercy Ships, to bring life changing and life-giving surgical healthcare to those most in need around the world.

Everybody needs to have somebody on their side - especially when they are the most vulnerable person in the room. I grew up in an impoverished community and anytime someone in my family or in my community needed medical care, we always went to the community hospital. Community hospitals are the place where everyone’s health is cared for regardless of their social, demographic or financial situation, but unlike private hospitals, the wait for care is often long, treatment is perfunctory, and the staff can be unkind. As a child I watched while members of my family were ignored, given half-truths or lied to because no one had the time to explain things to their understanding. I made decisions that led to me having my first child at 14 and, because of the broken healthcare system I had witnessed, I pledged to educate myself to be my child’s defender and promoter, even though I was still a child myself. Because I was under 16, I had a Social Worker assigned to make sure I was able to take care of my daughter. I met with her once a month. Even though I was in school, I stayed up late reading everything I could get my hands on about babies and child health and development. I asked questions, I demanded explanations and was able to prove to my social worker that I could stand up and stand strong for my baby. She became my advocate helping me find the resources I needed to be able to graduate from high school and find a good job. Other girls in my family and on the block started coming to me with questions about their pregnancies and eventually their babies. A girl I went to school with was also a teen mom and we became friends. Every time she went for her monthly check-ups the nurse would try to tell her that the best thing she could do was put her baby up for adoption because she could never give him nice things or a decent life. She would call me crying and I would have to tell her that she had to stand strong for her baby. But I knew how she was feeling. It is hard to convince yourself you can be a good mom when you don’t have anything for the baby when it’s born. I had started gifting clothes and toys and accessories that my daughter outgrew to other girl moms, but I didn’t have anything for a baby boy, so I started asking around and my cousin had six-month twin boys, so she started gifting their clothes, toys and a pack and play they had outgrown, to my friend. As my daughter grew, I wanted to make a better life for her, so I started attending college. Bless her heart, so many nights, her bedtime story was whatever textbook I was studying. But I had to move to keep my job and stopped going to school. My daughter is an adult now. She went to college and got her degree as a Clinical Social Worker. She works at a community hospital now, encouraging and emotionally supporting teen moms because she is a part of the village community that we all live in. So now, I am committed to pursuing a career that will also help me proudly serve my community to make lives better!