Graduate student's passion for building relationships led to her career in nursing
November 1, 2024
For Kamilia Stone, nursing is all about building relationships and connections.
Whether it’s mentors who guide her, fellow students she considers family or patients in the community she aims to help, Stone’s passion for creating partnerships is at the heart of her career path.
Now, as a member of the first cohort of the School of Nursing nurse anesthetist program, Stone, 37, is climbing to new heights in her job and her adopted hometown.
UofL created a foundation for Stone by providing her the opportunity to achieve her goals. Stone, who is originally from Kyrgyzstan, came to the US when she was 19 years old and landed in Louisville.
Upon arrival, she worked at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom – just next door to UofL’s campus – through a program called Work and Travel USA. There, she had the opportunity to learn English and save some money. While she was working and adapting to living in Louisville, she kept her aspirations of becoming a nurse.
Those dreams started to take shape when she was accepted at UofL, where she eventually earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 2012 and a bachelor’s degree in nursing in 2013. The nursing program particularly fueled her desire to serve, and she began working in the health care field while earning her degrees.
“It gave me that solid base where I could grow into becoming who I am,” she said. “It gave me an opportunity, it opened the door for something that maybe I couldn’t have done if I hadn’t pursued this.”
Stone spread her wings after graduation, pursued a nursing career with pit stops as a travel nurse in both New York and San Diego before returning to Louisville where she most recently worked at UofL Health – UofL Hospital in the Neuro-ICU. “After being in San Diego, being in New York and seeing it all, I realize this is my home,” she said. “This is where my heart is and I love our community.”
She credits relationships with her colleagues as her support system, especially Kena DeSpain, a fellow UofL alumna who was the manager that hired Stone as a personal care assistant in 2008, and Cathy Sanford-Barth, who led Stone to become a travel nurse.
“All of these women who came along in my life as a nurse somehow influenced me to be who I am,” she said.
With her mentors’ encouragement, Stone decided in 2023 to advance her nursing career again as part of UofL’s first nurse anesthetist program. She is one of 16 students in the first cohort.
The 36-month program consists of registered nurses with a bachelor’s degree and an average of four years of critical care experience. It requires a minimum of 2,880 hours completed at Louisville’s top ranked hospitals, as well as rotations in rural communities. After talking with coworkers and shadowing a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, Stone’s hunger to achieve led her to apply for the program.
She also didn’t shy away from the obstacles of diving into the new program. “From my prior clinical experience to now being in a new academic world, and just finding myself and being a student again…it was a little bit challenging” Stone said.
Stone says the relationships she gained through the program lifted her up and supported her on her journey. She describes her classmates in the cohort as best friends who do anything to support each other.
“We compare ourselves to Navy seals because it is such a tight group and we are so close to each other,” she said.
With two years left in the program, Stone has her eyes set on the finish line. Dedication and determination partnered with the support of her UofL cohort and her love for the impact she can make as a nurse is a powerful combination helping Stone serve as a beacon of inspiration for others in her field.
“This feeling when you make somebody’s day better, realizing that today is the worst day of their entire life and you go through that experience and you are able to make a difference in their life where they come out of this bed with just a little tiny hope or just feeling at ease – it is worth everything,” she said.
Erica Walsh is the marketing director for the Office of Communications and Marketing. Her job lets her share UofL’s good news in all avenues of communications including UofL Magazine, advertising, content marketing and branding. Walsh joined UofL in 2014 after previously serving as the public relations specialist at Indiana University Southeast. Prior to her career in higher education communications she was an award-winning newspaper reporter. Red is one of her favorite colors and it’s a good thing, too, because she earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Western Kentucky University and her master’s in communication from UofL.