Yirancis Rivera
She Serves as an Inspiration — in Any Language
Yirancis Rivera, center, at the nurse pinning at Westfield State University in May.
Yirancis Rivera came to Springfield from Puerto Rico when she was 7 years old.
She has many memories from her youth, but among those that stand out are visits to healthcare facilities, where she would serve as an interpreter for her mother — who didn’t speak any English — even though she was still learning the language herself and was basically relying on what she learned from watching TV shows.
“I still remember walking into a hospital with my mom for the first time … the unfamiliar sounds, the sea of English words I didn’t understand, and the weight of her trusting me to be her voice,” she recalled. “I was overwhelmed but determined.”
Remember those two words.
In many ways, they define a truly inspiring story of how Rivera overcame challenges, some long odds, and many occasions when she felt overwhelmed to graduate from Westfield State University’s nursing program and earn a job on N3, a med-surg unit at Cooley Dickinson Hospital (CDH) in Northampton; she’s due to start in early August.
“I still remember walking into a hospital with my mom for the first time … the unfamiliar sounds, the sea of English words I didn’t understand, and the weight of her trusting me to be her voice.”
Her story begins with that hospital visit with her mother, which planted a seed, if you will, and motivated Rivera to become much more than a mere translator.
“I wanted to be a nurse who could provide comfort and care, no matter what language someone speaks,” she told BusinessWest. “I developed a passion for helping others that is deeply personal. Learning medical terminology in English felt like learning a second language, and there were times when I doubted myself. But I kept going, driven by the knowledge that families like mine need nurses who truly understand them.
“I knew that I wanted to be someone my patients could look up to in the sense that they speak the same language as me,” she went on. “But I also saw that there weren’t many nurses who looked like me, and I wanted to be part of that change.”
Returning to her youth, Rivera recalled that, while she had the vision and drive to be a nurse — with some inspiration from her great grandmother, who served a tech in a maternity unit — she wasn’t at all sure if such a career was within reach, financially and otherwise. But she worked hard, earned scholarships that essentially left her debt-free after graduating, and was able to enroll at Westfield State.
She credits her professors at the school with helping her not only with the rugged course material, but also with overcoming doubts that she fit in and could make it in this field.
“I had such amazing people in my life to get me here — especially the people in the Westfield program; I don’t know if I would have made it this far without them,” she said. “The small nursing classes there allowed me to build close connections with professors who encouraged me and helped me grow.”
Rivera completed rotations at Baystate Noble Hospital, the Holyoke Senior Center, Mercy Medical Center, Baystate Pediatrics, Springfield Public Schools, Hampden County House of Corrections, and Holyoke Medical Center, where, coincidentally, she worked on the M5 Adult Behavioral Health Unit with charge nurse Kim Larrier (see related story on page 32).
She said she chose CDH to start her career for several reasons, especially because it offers an opportunity to serve her community and also “be a bridge for patients who might feel unseen or forgotten.”
As noted, she is expected to start early next month, and is currently taking part in the hospital’s nurse residency program, where recent graduates are paired with a preceptor, but also other recent graduates.
“They’re going through that transition with you,” she said of the jump from school to the workplace, adding that it’s good to have the opportunity to work beside people who are also getting started in the field.
And while she’s looking forward to the med-surg unit — “it’s an amazing place to start, especially as a new grad, because you get many different kinds of cases” — her goal is to work in the intensive care unit.
“As nurses, one of our main goals is to help people cope,” she explained. “But especially in an ICU, you have to learn how to critically think. I’d love to experience the challenge on that floor.”
While she’s just getting started in her career as a nurse, Rivera hopes her story can serve as an inspiration and that she can be a role model of sorts to others facing the many types of challenges she did.
“Nursing isn’t just a job for me … it’s a calling,” she explained. “As a bilingual, first-generation nurse, I want others from backgrounds like mine to know they belong in healthcare and can succeed. My journey wasn’t easy or typical, but it shaped me into a nurse.”
