Sarah Waldron
Degree: BS 2013
Before graduating college, Sarah Waldron already knew that when she had her own baby, she wanted to have an unmedicated birth with a midwife. A certified nurse midwife and women’s health nurse practitioner, Waldron owns and operates a community home birth midwifery practice, Wildflower Birth and Wellness.
As a nurse midwife, Waldron provides holistic care to mothers through all the stages of birth from preconception to postpartum care. This holistic approach, Waldron says, is more than just lab work and ultrasounds. Though those are important, she says it is also vital to look at the mother’s nutrition, hydration, mental health, and other aspects that factor into the overall health of the mother and baby.
Waldron first learned about midwifery while researching birthing as a student at the UC Irvine Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing. After she graduated with a BS in 2013, Waldron felt called to bring midwifery to women in her community.
“I immediately called my now husband, and was like, ‘I’m gonna have babies in bathtubs and this is what I want to do for work and how cool is this?’”
She says that though modern industrialized medicine has many benefits, it’s important to acknowledge that for mothers at a low risk for complications, there are other options.
“Home birth and taking care of families as they welcome a baby, especially at home, is different, because it allows the space and the kind of reverence around that rite of passage in a way that’s kind of unfortunately been lost in the hospital,” Waldron says.
Lee Dao
Degree: BS 2023
For Leo Dao, the best part of working at the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) is helping families through what he knows can be one of the most difficult times of their lives. It’s helping a first-time mom change her baby’s diaper. It’s providing care when a baby or mother can’t quite go home yet. It’s being there for the family, every step of the way.
A first-generation student and the son of a single, immigrant mother, Dao says his family life influenced his decision to go into healthcare at an early age. But he didn’t just want to be a provider, he wanted to be an advocate for his patients—especially mothers like his own—and make
sure their feelings were being taken into consideration. So, he turned to nursing.
Dao graduated from the UC Irvine Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing in 2023. While he was a student earning his BS, he found his calling during his rotation with the UCI Medical Center’s NICU. He quickly realized that it was just as important to take care of the family as it was to take care of the infant patients.
“For us, it’s a job and it’s healthcare, but for [the family], they miss out on that experience and I can see that take a toll on the family,” Dao says.
Now, as a professional NICU nurse at UCI Medical Center, Dao aims to provide excellent care for his patients and help ease the toll on their families.
Kelley Cowan
Degree: BS 2021
Kelley Cowan knows that the hospital setting can be a very scary place. When things go wrong, she says, they can go wrong fast. As a labor and delivery nurse, she wants to make sure that her patients are able to make informed decisions, for both themselves and their child.
A graduate of the UC Irvine Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing, Cowan says she fell in love with labor and delivery during school. She says UC Irvine made her adaptive, helping her realize the importance of being a lifelong learner.
During her rotation with the obstetrics department, Cowan enjoyed working with patients and advocating for the women she provided care for.
“It’s easy to be dismissed when it comes to concerns we have. So I really wanted to be able to advocate for patients that had that struggle, especially in a time where, in our country, we’re having women’s rights kind of taken away,” Cowan says. “I wanted to be able to really ensure that we didn’t have that issue and make sure my patients felt like they were heard and that their concerns were valid.”
Growing up with medical issues of her own, the compassionate care she received as a long-time patient inspired Cowan to pursue a career in healthcare. She aims both to be an advocate for her patients, and to help them advocate for themselves.
Cowan, who earned her bachelor’s in nursing science in 2021, now works at the women’s hospital of the same hospital where she was born.
CALLING ALUMNI
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