Lindsey DiTanna’s favorite childhood Christmas presents were microscopes and science kits. Her grandfather even built her a desk for experiments, sink included. Rather than baby dolls, she was fascinated with how real babies worked. Eventually it grew into a passion too big for her workbench.
But first she had to explore another gift: a natural singing ability. Inspired by musical theater, 1940s jazz, and opera, she released a 2007 album entitled Follow Me, using the stage name Lindsey Taylor, but soon afterward developed nodules on her vocal cords. She is still able to sing, but not for very long. Music’s loss meant a science career was reborn.
At age 15, DiTanna spent a day shadowing nurses and physicians at Hanover General Hospital in Pennsylvania, where her aunt worked as an RN. “They had me standing on a stool because I was short then,” DiTanna said. “I was trying to look over and see everything.”
She’s taller now, but the Hopkins nursing student is no less hooked, and was recently awarded the Kay Emery McClaine Scholarship, which will help her pursue her goal of becoming a nurse-midwife and one day opening a birth center.
“I want to take time to understand where the patients are in their understanding of what’s going on,” she said. “I think my desire is to offer patients the full scope of care as a midwife.”
Kay Emery McClaine Scholarship
In 1961, Kay Emery McClaine ’64 left her small hometown in Maine to attend Hopkins on a full scholarship. In 1997, she and her husband, James, established the Kay Emery McClaine Scholarship to give back to the School of Nursing and reach out to the next generation of Hopkins nurses.