Renee Crucillo Suarez

A lot of my family members were nurses. My mom specifically was a NICU nurse. Growing up, I was very much surrounded by that type of environment. It was natural that people would talk about it at the dinner table or at family events. I remember going with her to the hospital, or when there was a special event at the hospital we would go together. I had always really liked taking care of people and medicine. The human body had always fascinated me. I did think about going to medical school, but my mom encouraged me to try out nursing first. To get my foot in the water and see whether or not medicine was truly a passion for me. She always felt that I really liked caring and helping out. She thought that being a nurse would be something that I would enjoy. From there, I did all of the prerequisites and ended up going to FIU Nursing. I realized that I enjoyed teaching. Being given all the different opportunities at FIU to go into nursing and see the different resources that they had was a really great opportunity for me.