2019 graduate student leadership award recipient and spring 2019 graduate Christine Foote-Lucero has been a licensed registered nurse for 17 years and a Forensic Nurse Examiner (FNE) for the past decade at the University of Colorado Hospital (UCH) in Aurora, Colorado. Her work puts her in direct contact with patients who have endured great trauma in the form of sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and human trafficking.
Foote-Lucero decided to go back to grad school to elevate her professional status and secure her current job position. She currently manages the FNE team at UCH. The hospital is a magnet hospital that will soon require a master's as an entry level degree for any nurse manager. In her current position as Forensic Program Manager, she has developed a robust FNE orientation program as well as education and training for on-going FNE performance based competencies, clinical skills exemplars, and high fidelity simulations.
She approaches this work with commitment and compassion, and channels her experiences into advocacy at the state and national level. In Colorado, she testified before her legislature on issues affecting mental health, sexual assault, partner violence, and stalking. She also presented at two national conferences this year on other matters affecting care for patients affected by a host of violent crimes.
"My advice to others who want to embark on this endeavor is to remember that you get out of something what you put in, and as nurses, we must invest in our professional careers! I ensured that I set up clinical rotations that would connect me with the best experiences and I immersed myself in the forensic literature when preparing for homework assignments, papers, and other grad school projects."