---
title: "Celebrating AZCN Values: A Nursing Student’s Mission to Support Children and Families"
url: "https://arizonacollege.edu/blog/a-nursing-students-mission-to-support-children-and-families/"
type: post
date_published: 2025-01-14
date_modified: 2025-08-01
schema:
  @type: Article
language: en-US
word_count: 1073
reading_time: 6 min
canonical: "https://arizonacollege.edu/blog/a-nursing-students-mission-to-support-children-and-families/"
featured_image: "https://arizonacollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/DoraBT-photo01-copy.webp"
categories:
  - Nursing School
---

# Celebrating AZCN Values: A Nursing Student’s Mission to Support Children and Families

_This is a multi-part series celebrating Arizona College of Nursing students, their stories, and their embodiment of the AZCN values._

_In 2023, Arizona College of Nursing established the AZCN Values Scholarship Fund as a way to celebrate our values with our colleagues, our students, and the communities in which we serve. Each time an AZCN colleague recognizes another colleague for demonstrating our values, $5 is added to the scholarship fund. These add up to $5,000 scholarships awarded to students the following year who have demonstrated our values within their communities._

Join us in celebrating 2024 AZCN Values Scholarship recipient Dora Bobadilla
Torres as she shares some of her journey to nursing.

---

## Nursing Education and Volunteer Work: Dora’s Story

_Meet AZCN Values Scholarship Recipient, Dora Bobadilla Torres, a Nursing Student at the AZCN Tempe Campus. In addition to her Nursing education, Dora has volunteered over one hundred hours at the St. Vincent de Paul Medical Clinic, providing care as a medical assistant, phlebotomist, scribe, and translator._

## Dora’s Essay: Embracing Nursing to Serve Her Community

As a first-generation Mexican American from an economically disadvantaged
background, receiving the Arizona College of Nursing Values Scholarship would
help me meet the future healthcare needs of my community by allowing me to focus
more time on school and learning essential nursing skills, and less on work.
With the additional time given to me from the scholarship, I would be able to
focus on studying and hone in all the skills it takes to succeed as a student
and become a well-rounded nurse.

Helping my community through healthcare is a journey I undertook as growing up,
I experienced firsthand the barriers faced by immigrant communities in receiving
quality healthcare, especially when it comes to language barriers, financial
limitations, and immigration status. My parents ingrained in me the significance
of hard work and resilience, even if the odds were stacked against us. This was
able to teach me responsibility as well as give me a way to learn how to engage
with those around me to help make the community a better place for everyone,
both of which are values stated within our mission. Additionally, my ultimate
goal is to work in a place that allows me to care for vulnerable populations,
including children and people who have limited access to healthcare, such as my
parents did.

However, due to my family’s financial standing, focusing solely on my education
has proven to be extremely difficult, on not just me, but also my whole family.
Receiving the Arizona College of Nursing Values Scholarship would help better
align me with the mission as it would allow me to better prepare as a student to
meet the community’s future healthcare needs. The extra time granted to me from
the funds would be spent volunteering to put my skills to use and refine them.
Furthermore, being granted this scholarship would help meet my community’s
future healthcare needs as it would also serve as an inspiration to others in
similar situations who may be turned away from studying medicine. With more
people inspired to join the field, healthcare would be more readily available
and accessible to the community.

![Arizona nursing school student at Tempe campus](https://arizonacollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/DoraBT-photo01-copy.webp)![Arizona nursing school student at Tempe campus](https://arizonacollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/DoraBT-photo01-copy.webp)
Moreover, as a first-generation Mexican American student, I believe my
educational journey embodies the core values of Arizona College of Nursing of
cultural competence, compassion, and advocacy. My experiences navigating the
healthcare system as a child, as well as an adult, have truly shown the impact
cultural sensitivity and elective communication can have while providing quality
care. Being bilingual has allowed me to experience what it is like navigating
the healthcare system flustered, young, and scared. I understand how important
it is to provide culturally competent care which includes elective communication
as well as compassion for diversity. These values are not just words on paper,
but principles that firmly guide my everyday actions and interactions with
patients and their families. To demonstrate my values and put my beliefs in
action, I have dedicated more than seven hundred hours to receiving my Medical
Assisting and Phlebotomy certificates solely to volunteer over one hundred hours
at St. Vincent de Paul Medical Clinic; a medical clinic that provides care for a
predominantly impoverished Hispanic community that does not speak English, at no
charge. My volunteer work there as a medical assistant, Phlebotomist, Scribe,
and Interpreter has truly shown me the impact that therapeutic communication and
compassion can have.

By awarding me the Arizona College of Nursing Values Scholarship, the college
would be investing in not only a student who embodies its mission and values,
but also a dedicated healthcare professional committed to serving their
community. This scholarship would not only enable me to further engage in my
studies and clinical experiences, but it would also allow me to continue
volunteering and helping the community I love and care about.

---

## Reflecting on the Tempe Campus Experience

**Q:** How did you find Arizona College of Nursing?

**A:** I am currently going to the Tempe campus at AZCN. I found AZCN by looking
online. I was looking at different nursing schools and I really liked the
location. I really like the hands-on experience that they provide not just
clinicals, but also the simulations and all of that.

**Q:** What are things that you like about the Tempe campus or college
community?

**A:** I really like the community and the staff here. I think they make it
important to show their support, especially the counselors. They check in every
few weeks or months just to make sure everybody’s doing well. And if you’re
struggling in class, they reach out and they try to help you improve. There’s
always support.

**Q:** How would you describe the Tempe campus or college community?

**A:** I like that the classes are small, so the professors get to be more
personal and pay more attention to you. I like having a small group for the
whole semester, it helps build really good bonds with other students. I think
that’s really important in nursing school, especially with study groups and
being with other people who are taking the same course with the same professors,
same lab times, and schedules. It makes it really easy to feel supported.

**Categories:** Nursing School