Maurice Turner

Maurice Turner of Springfield, Doctor of Nursing Practice. 

Maurice works as a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield while he completes his degree in the Doctor of Nursing Program at Elms College. He is on track to graduate in May 2024.

He is in the home stretch of a personal marathon that started years ago when he decided to pursue a career in medicine.  Originally from Jamaica, he came to the United States at age 16. After high school, he began working as a long-haul truck driver. That meant crisscrossing the country and being away from home for days and weeks at a time. “I was making a ton of money but I was homesick. I was always on the road.”

His sister was at that time a licensed practical nurse (LPN) and suggested he get into nursing, telling him that it was a good career and the profession needed more men. “She planted the seed and I looked into it.” He went to school to become an LPN  and soon found work in a nursing home. Wanting to advance in his career, he returned to school to become a registered nurse, and this led to his employment at Baystate. He was initially in the neural unit, treating people who suffered strokes or brain injuries. More recently he transferred to the ICU in 2017. “I really love it,” he said.

But he still had the desire to advance his nursing education and began thinking of returning to school for his Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree. A DNP is the highest step in nursing and will allow him to work as a nurse practitioner.  

But before choosing a DNP program, he wanted to make sure he had the right program at the right school. He started asking all the nurse practitioners he knew for advice.

“There is a nurse practitioner that I work with. She is by far my favorite. I love her knowledge and how she is always on top of things,” he said. “I asked her where she went to school, and she said Elms.” 

Many of the others also recommended Elms College. “It always came back to Elms,” he said.

The DNP program is very stressful but he said he knew that going in. What made Elms different, he said, is the level of support from the faculty. “I do feel supported. There is always something I can email to ask what’s going on. I get good feedback, support, and guidance.”

The classes are small and the faculty do get to know you. He said he is always amazed whenever he talks with Teresa Kuta Reske, the head of the program, and she refers to some conversation they had weeks and months earlier. He wonders how she can remember that, but the answer is really simple, he said.

“You see, it’s small and you get to know each other. They get to know students,” he said. 

“It’s almost like a family thing. It’s professional but welcoming. They have the support you need to help push you through.”

Once he gets his DNP, he wants to work as a nurse practitioner in primary care, preferably at a neighborhood-based health clinic. “I want to work with minorities. I want to be in the community.”

He said that as a Black man, he is aware of the importance of seeing and being seen by minority patients. “We need more representation.”  For issues of trust and relatability, it is important for patients from communities of color to be treated by doctors and nurses who look like they do, he said.

He tells the story of one patient, a black man in his late 50s, from one of his clinical work as part of his DNP work. For several years, the man would come in for an examination, and each year the doctors and nurses would recommend he have a colonoscopy to screen for cancer. Each year the man would refuse. A white nurse relayed all this to Maurice when the man came in for his annual physical. He remembers her saying that he would refuse but Maurice should ask about the colonoscopy anyway.

When he suggested the procedure to the man, he asked if it was necessary. Maurice said the test was the best way to screen for cancer, and black men have a higher death rate from colon cancer than anyone else, mostly because they tend to put off the test until it is too late to detect cancer and begin treatment. The man agreed to have a colonoscopy.

He said his experience in his clinical trials reaffirmed that he made the right choice and that one person in the right situation can make a profound difference in the lives of others.

“What I’m seeing in the clinic solidifies what I’m thinking,” he said.

“That’s my goal; that’s my passion.