Rhonda Bush, R.N., manages only a rushed “hello” before things begin to change rapidly.

“He’s hurting real badly across his neck and back,” a woman tells Rhonda after rushing up to the nurses’ station at Jackson’s Kentucky River Medical Center. Concern showing on her face, Rhonda quickly flips through the patient’s chart to check his medication.

“I’ve got an emergency to take care of,” she explains as she speeds off to the patient’s bedside. Much of the rest of Rhonda’s shift would revolve around stabilizing the man’s condition.

Later, reflecting upon that incident, Rhonda says that sometimes the best plan to have when working as a nurse is not to have a plan.

“Expect the unexpected, in other words,” she says with a laugh. “We deal with pediatric patients all the way to geriatric, from patients with fractures, heart caths, to people on telemetry. We treat a multitude of people of different ages with different conditions.

“But I treat them all like they’re family,” she adds.

Rhonda’s ‘go-the-extra-mile’ attitude comes from knowing how important it is to help those in need. She also knows how it feels to need help, because the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) program provided the assistance that made it possible for her to train for her life-changing career.

“The WIA truly meant the difference in me getting where I am today,” she says.

Today, after more than a year on the job, Rhonda is getting used to the daily drama that can play out at a hospital. Twelve years ago, Rhonda was dealing with drama of a different sort that ultimately led her to pursue a medical career.

In 1993, Rhonda’s husband suffered multiple severe injuries in a coal mining accident. The injuries abruptly ended his career and required some 30 surgeries to repair, Rhonda says. She became his primary caregiver throughout his prolonged recovery.

“I bathed him, clothed him, and fed him. I did everything,” Rhonda says. “I guess my desire to do nursing really sprung up inside me because of that.”

Providing that level of constant care for many years was a struggle, she says. The struggle was compounded by the loss of her husband’s income. Saddled with financial difficulties, Rhonda opted to get serious about training for a career that could improve her family’s situation.

Although Rhonda was determined, she chose to start small. Her first college experience came in 2000 when she enrolled in a basic computer class, “because I didn’t even know how to turn a computer on, much less use one,” she chuckles.

Next, Rhonda enrolled in a full semester of basic education classes at the Lees College campus of Hazard Community and Technical College (HCTC) in Jackson. The perfect 4.0 grade point average she earned lifted her confidence to an all-time high, so Rhonda turned her attention to applying for the college’s nursing program.

Despite her good grades, Rhonda’s first attempt to enter the nursing program was unsuccessful due to a low ACT score. Rhonda was upset, but undaunted.

“I kept going, and I just kept taking more classes,” Rhonda says. “I ended up taking all my core classes, and all of the classes required to get into the nursing program.”

Two years later, she was finally accepted into the nursing program after her fourth attempt at the ACT produced the score she needed to get in. Rhonda was overjoyed, but still unsure about being able to afford the intensive training to come. She says her prayers were answered and her concerns were allayed by the WIA program.

Recommendations from friends led Rhonda to the Middle Kentucky River Area Development Council (MKRADC) in Jackson and the WIA program, which MKRADC provides locally under a contract with the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP). The MKRADC office is also an access point for the JobSight network, a collaborative partnership of workforce and training agencies administered by EKCEP.

Career Adviser Theresa Noble told Rhonda that WIA would cover gas and food expenses related to her college experience. WIA also would step in immediately to cover tuition costs for a summer microbiology class at the Hazard campus of HCTC which Rhonda says she needed before she could enter the nursing curriculum full-time.

“If WIA hadn’t paid for that first class, I couldn’t have made it,” she says. “It was $300, but $300 to me might as well have been $3,000, because it was out of my league either way.”

Other financial aid paid Rhonda’s tuition once she began her full-time studies in the nursing program in August 2002. WIA continued to provide her with travel and food money, which proved critical when her clinical studies required her to travel to Pikeville, Beattyville, Winchester, and Hazard.

“Sometimes financial aid isn’t enough,” Rhonda says. “You’ve got to have money for gas and food, and also to pay your bills. Without WIA, I would have been going to school hungry, because we literally wouldn’t have had enough money on our own to cover it all.”

WIA also purchased Rhonda’s uniforms and work shoes, as well as the blood pressure cuff and other medical supplies necessary for her training. When she graduated in May 2004 with an associate’s degree in nursing, WIA even picked up the fee for her state board exam.

One month later, Rhonda was working at Kentucky River Medical Center as an R.N.

Her journey had not been easy. She struggled to juggle caring for her husband with the demands of a full-time class schedule. Just before she graduated, Rhonda needed surgery to correct a life-threatening health condition—and then a flash flood damaged her home and destroyed many of her belongings. But none of those circumstances derailed her mission to become a registered nurse.

Rhonda held fast to her faith and her family, and the WIA—her “Godsend,” she calls it—was there to provide her financial support when she needed it most.

“I can make a good living for myself now,” Rhonda says. “I know if I can do it, anybody can. You can support yourself and be a productive member of society, and the WIA can help you get there.”