#TSRPositiveImages: It’s not where you started, #Roomies, it’s about where you end up and one #NewYork man proved to be a good example of that.
#FrankBaez was only a teen when he started working as a janitor at New York University’s Langone Tisch Hospital. His duties included cleaning patient rooms, bathrooms and hallways.
He’s come a long way but he never took his eye off the prize. This week, Baez, now 29 years old, graduated with a nursing degree from the same school, @goodmorningamerica reports.
“I could barely speak English at the time when I started working at NYU,” said Baez, who moved to New York from the Dominican Republic with his mom when he was 15. “Now I reflect on it and I feel very proud of how much I accomplished.”
Baez got his first job in housekeeping at the hospital because he wanted to do something to help support his family.
But once he started working, he became intrigued with the medical field and even applied for a job as a patient transporter. He got the job, taking patients to and from their rooms for surgeries and tests.
He eventually left the job to finish his bachelor’s degree at nearby Hunter College, becoming the first person in his family to graduate from college, but Baez said he always knew he wanted to return to where it all started.
“While working (at NYU) with the nurses, I realized I wanted to be one of them,” he said. “I learned how much they advocate for their patients and the passion they have for their job.”
Baez said he was actually encouraged by the nurses he worked with to apply to NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. He entered an accelerated program that allowed him to graduate with a nursing degree in just 15 months.
“Our program is extremely rigorous,” said Natalya Pasklinsky, director of simulation learning at the college of nursing. “Frank didn’t just kind of make the program, barely getting through. He flew through it with flying colors.”
Baez, who graduated with a 3.6 GPA, has his eyes set on his next goal of becoming a critical care nurse in an intensive care unit.
“I was never an A student. I just studied a lot and worked a lot,” he said. “Of course there were times I doubted myself, but then I felt that I wanted to do something more for myself, that I deserved better, that I wanted to continue to move forward and grow and go on with my life.”
“What I did was, I never gave up,” Baez said.
