time away from the emergency room in Ketchikan,
Alaska, where she’s a nurse.
Since April Beaty ’98 graduated from Wichita State with her bachelor’s in nursing, she has worked as a traveling nurse, helping out in emergency rooms in New Hampshire, Colorado and Kansas City, Mo., most recently. But ever since she visited Alaska in 1992, she’s hoped to return one day.
“When this opportunity came up in Ketchikan I thought, ‘I want this!’ I decided it was time to get out of Kansas City before the heat and humidity set in,” Beaty says. “They were very glad I was interested.”
Beaty, who until recently served as a WSU alumni chapter contact in Kansas City, will work a total of six months at the emergency room in Ketchikan.
She will finish her assignment in October. One of the biggest differences between this assignment and past ones is the type of traumas ER workers treat.
“The majority of traumas that we will see here have to do with logging. We also get a lot of marine and fishing accidents,” she says, noting that because of tourism, the population of Ketchikan increases from 8,000 to 12,000 during the summer months.
But it’s just those types of differences that make Beaty’s job so rewarding, she says. “I get to meet new people and experience new cultures. There’s a lot to see here, and I’m just at the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.”
