By Dr. Esperanca Camara

Esperança Camara is a first generation American.  She received her B.A. in Art History from Reed College and her M.A. and Ph.D., also in Art History, from Johns Hopkins University. From 2003-2020, she taught Art History at the University of Saint Francis in Fort Wayne, IN. She also served as Director of the M.A. in Studio Art Program. In 2007, she received the university’s Excellence in Teaching and Campus Leadership Award and in 2015 the Exemplary Online Course Award.  In 2022, she completed her A. S. in Nursing at the University of Saint Francis and began her career as an oncology nurse at Lutheran Hospital, Fort Wayne, IN.

KK: Dr. Camara kindly wrote and shared this in response to my query on the Professor Is Out facebook group, asking for members to compare their lives outside academia with their former lives inside.

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I have a lot to say about my journey transitioning from being a tenured art history professor at a small, religious college in the Midwest to a nurse at a regional hospital.  But, I will keep the focus here on the questions posed in your post.

The most surprising aspect about the transition is this: I am so much happier and more relaxed as a nurse than as a professor.  Yes, being a nurse on an oncology floor, working 12-hour shifts and most holidays, is less stressful than being a professor with summers off.  I know this sounds crazy, but it is the truth.  Here are the main reasons:

• Work stays at work. It does not consume my thoughts every waking hour of every day (including the days of the so-called months off); it does not keep me up at night brainstorming creative ways to engage students who really have no interest in learning about a discipline I love so much.  This is not to say that all of my students were disinterested, but I taught many GE classes to students who didn’t want to be there, so I was constantly trying to demonstrate the value of art and its history.  I also spent so much energy trying to demonstrate the value of the discipline and of my other contributions to the university.  I was well aware that my program (and thus my position) was constantly under scrutiny as the administration sought each year to balance the budget.  Not only did my job demand much (a 4/4 teaching load, recruiting events, weekend gallery openings, evening lectures), but, out of fear of losing a career I worked so hard to attain, I threw myself into committee work – all in the hopes that I would be spared when the time came for “program reprioritization.” Well, I wasn’t.  In the fall of 2019, I lost my position of 18 years.

Now, as a nurse, when I am at work, I am completely focused on my job, and when I am home I focus on the rest of my life.  My job is now just that – it is not who I am.  I deeply grieved the loss of my career and my identity as an art historian.  It took some time to get used to a new identity, one disentangled from how I earned a living, but now I love it.  I feel an incredible sense of freedom and relief.  Wearing a uniform helps.  I literally shed the clothing that identifies me as a nurse and become a person with a well-rounded life outside of work.  Only after I lost the job as a professor did I realize just how constraining it was.  I have so many other interests that I didn’t have time to pursue because everything went into trying to keep the academic position. And, most importantly, when I spend time with my loved ones, I am truly present.  I am, in general, more present in all aspects and all moments of my life.  Everyone who knows me has noted how much more relaxed I am.  And, I feel it.

• I am valued at work on numerous levels. Rather than bending over backwards trying to demonstrate the value of my field (of what I valued so much that had dedicated my life to it), I am now valued without question. I am valued for my newly-acquired skills as a nurse.  My teaching career ended the semester the Covid pandemic began.  Nurses were in high demand before the pandemic; that demand only increased after.  It has been a novel experience to be in a field where demand is high. It is a relief to no longer have to explain the value of my skills and knowledge. Everyone seems to know.  This is a new experience for me.

In academia, I never felt that what I did was enough, so I kept doing more and more – it seemed to have no end.  On the hospital floor, my obligations are clear and the hours are finite – yes, long and physically and emotionally exhausting, but finite.  I simply cannot work unless I am at the hospital. Moreover, if I work more, I get paid more.  I like the clarity of the boundaries and the expectations.

I am valued by my patients not only for the physical care I provide (the accomplishment of the nursing tasks), but for being emotionally present.  At times, it seems like too much – I am often there when people receive the worst news of their lives, when they say good-bye to hope.  Sometimes, I think, this aspect of the job is too much to bear. Human frailty and death are so close; the emotional burden can feel too heavy.  But, on my 4 days off a week, I rejuvenate.  I fill my life with positive things, I feel myself heal, so I can have the strength to do it again – to be present and empathetic, kind, and cheerful, to follow-through and get answers to questions, to advocate and care. Feeling valued is profoundly rewarding.

• I experience life (and death) in a broader, deeper, more meaningful way. I did not realize how narrowing academia was until I left it.  My single-minded focus on keeping my career and my love of the life of the mind somehow narrowed my existence.  I have trouble articulating this, but somehow I feel more human. I work closely with people from all walks of life, I experience more facets of human life, I think more deeply and more comprehensively about what it means to be human and how humans face and live through illness, aging, and dying.  I have used what I encounter at work to fuel new areas of intellectual inquiry as I think through these big questions.