Page 23 - Johns Hopkins Nursing Magazine Fall 2020 - Johns Hopkins School of Nursing

NEWS FROM JOHNS HOPKINS NURSING WE ARE ALL EAST BALTIMORE The Magic Word: Listen NEWS FROM JOHNS HOPKINS NURSING

Student Senate President Leah Woienski of the Master's Entry
Program lets her open ears open doors

BY STEVE ST. ANGELO

hen you’re the new kid in town as
W frequently as Leah Woienski has
For better or worse: Woienski’s brother was
been all her life, you learn to read a room,
born in Japan; her sister in Hawaii. “I was
a school, or even a moment of potentially home was wherever the military sent us.”
born in Carson City, NV.” Her folks finally
great social change—and see exactly where settled on rural Montana as a permanent
you fit. It’s how the daughter of a U.S. Navy residence. (Remote, but “so beautiful!”)
officer, a bit younger than most colleagues
at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Woienski earned a bachelor’s degree at
becomes their Student Senate leader. It’s Chapman University, then moved east
how, once more, Woienski has turned a in August 2019 from Southern California,
strange city into home, unfamiliar faces “where everything is sugar-coated all the
into a family. time. … In Baltimore, it’s just real, and
raw.” Charm City won her heart anyway. As
Her skeleton key? “Learn to meet people did her classmates. “So many incredible
where they are. Know when to step forward, backgrounds. There are attorneys in my
but also when to step back and give space, cohort! To come in as a 23-year-old and find
to listen.” It also helps to believe in magic, my seat at that table and my voice in that
20 or at least know how to plug into it. For environment … I’ve grown more being in 21
Woienski, that’s the “tiny humans” she has Baltimore and being at Hopkins than I ever
cared for through the years as a volunteer could have otherwise.”
(Make A Wish, Children’s Hospital of Orange
County, and Be the Match, for bone marrow Woienski is determined to make a
donors), as an intern at House of Ruth difference here, there, and everywhere.
Baltimore, and now in clinicals at Dayspring “As a white woman, I feel a tremendous
Programs, Johns Hopkins Hospital, and responsibility in this moment in history.” So
Sibley Memorial. “Magic is still real for she’s stepping forward, helping establish
them,” Woienski says of even the sickest several Student Senate positions devoted
pediatric patients. “A hospital shouldn’t to diversity, and she’s listening. “There is
ever have to be a home. But if it has to be often a separation between MSN vs. DNP
for a kid …” Presto! A pulse oximeter is a vs. PhD students, and it’s something we are
JOHNS HOPKINS NURSING FALL/WINTER 2020
“princess finder.” Shazam! A blood pressure working on to allow for and encourage more
cuff is a “superhero muscle tester.” networking, collaboration, and relationships
between the programs.”
Learn more about the A healthy imagination, people skills, and
JHSON masters programs at a sense of self are essential to thriving in There is no magic wand, but that’s OK.
NURSING.JHU.EDU/MASTERS
a childhood spent relocating every two “Something my parents always told me
to three years. “My mom always said that growing up is that nothing worth having
ever comes easy.” ◼
“Something my parents always told MAGAZINE.NURSING.JHU.EDU

me growing up is that nothing worth

having ever comes easy.” PHOTO BY CHRIS HARTLOVE