“I like being with people, talking to people, and helping people. I like making a difference in their lives during hard times,” says Justin Bilik, a student in the traditional class of 2011. “Being a nurse is the best way to do that.”
Growing up in the Baltimore suburbs, Bilik had “always heard about Hopkins,” even researching the institution for a fifth grade social studies project. “I spent hours trying to accurately hand-draw the Hopkins dome,” he recalls. Today, he is learning and working under that same dome, thanks in part to the Dorothy P. and C. Emmerich Mears Scholarship.
Coming to nursing school at Hopkins “just feels right,” he says. “Hopkins nurses are critical thinkers and that’s what I want to be.”
Eventually, Bilik plans to become a nurse practitioner, perhaps in the Hopkins NP acute care master’s program. His specialty of choice? “Perhaps cardiac telemetry, research, geriatrics, or even gastroenterology,” says Bilik. “I’m interested in everything.”
Dorothy P. and C. Emmerich Mears Scholarship
Dorothy Mears Ward established this scholarship–named for her parents–in appreciation for the nurses who cared for her at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and in recognition of the importance of nursing education for quality patient care.