Jane Onwuegbuchu and Elizabeth Pawelek both had careers as family nurse practitioners (FNPs) in mind when they became registered nurses just in time for the COVID-19 pandemic. They saved up during their first few years of work to pay for graduate school, and a scholarship from the CVS Health Foundation will help them achieve their goals.

For Onwuegbuchu, the $10,000 scholarship will replenish the savings she had to spend on a used car after her vehicle was totaled in a wreck. Pawalek hopes her award will help her pursue her passion for medical missions by helping fund a trip to Uganda next summer.

Onwuegbuchu, a native Houstonian whose parents immigrated from Nigeria, is studying on the FNP track of Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing to Doctor of Nursing Practice (BSN-DNP) program. She earned her BSN from Texas Woman’s University in 2019 and worked as a travel nurse before taking a job rotating among several local HCA hospitals.

“I decided to pursue my FNP so I could provide more preventive care,” she said. Her DNP process improvement project will focus on the importance of follow-up care.

Onwuegbuchu is particularly interested in working with the Nigerian immigrant community, among whom conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes are common. She is involved with the Houston chapter of Umu Igbo Unite and its community services branch, UIUCares, which supports health care, education, and sustainability in eastern Nigeria. She hopes to someday join the mission team from her church on one of the trips that she helps organize each year.

The mothers of both students were nurses – Onwuegbuchu’s a licensed vocational nurse and Pawelek’s a labor and delivery nurse. However, Pawelek said she didn’t shift her focus to nursing until her mother became terminally ill with cancer.

“I think it was seeing the care that she had at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center that really inspired me,” said Pawelek, who is working toward her FNP through the Master of Science in Nursing program. She earned her first bachelor’s degree in biology from Texas A&M University before applying to the Pacesetter BSN program at Cizik School of Nursing. Through the Honors Research Program, she worked as an undergraduate with Assistant Professor Stacey Crane, PhD, RN, CPON, the Smart Pediatric Oncology Tracker of Symptoms.

Pawelek has worked for a plastic surgery practice and in an outpatient aesthetic treatment office since graduating in 2021. She also joined the Texas State Guard, where she serves as an RN and lieutenant in a medical battalion. In the latter role, she has performed community service work and participated in Operation Border Health Preparedness through the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Experience working with organizations that support underserved populations is one of the requirements for the CVS Health Foundation’s Caring Hearts Student Scholarship Program. Full-time and part-time students may apply for the scholarships, which are awarded annually.