‘Achieve your dreams at home’

Blackfeet Community College in Montana celebrates first Bachelor of Science in Nursing grad

When Dale Boushie was 17, she became a Certified Nursing Assistant and loved the job.

She worked in long-term care, and she remembers a friend pursuing her Registered Nurse certification who told Boushie how great it was to be a nurse. Soon, lots of Boushie’s friends were nurses, and she became even more passionate about advancing within the field.

“I wanted something more,” she said. “I wanted something that I could work hard for and say was mine. And I also wanted to help take care of my family — my husband and my daughter — and work in my community.”

Blackfeet Community College began offering nursing certificates about 10 years ago, and in 2019 the tribal college launched a new program for students to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree — the first four-year degree offered at the school.

Rayola Grant, an instructor for the college’s nursing program, said the opportunity to earn a bachelor’s degree makes students competitive in the job market.

“Most hospitals want to hire someone with a bachelor’s degree now,” she said. “If you’re deciding between a Licensed Practical Nurse, someone who has their Associate of Science in Nursing or someone who’s earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), you’re going to choose the BSN.”

The program at Blackfeet Community College was designed to help address a nursing and care shortage in the tribal community. Indian Health Service, the federal entity that provides federally recognized tribes with health care, is understaffed and underfunded. And people in the Blackfeet community say appointments are hard to come by. According to Boushie, there are just two dentists in Browning responsible for providing care to more than 10,000 residents, and up until recently, Boushie said preventive care was nonexistent.

Boushie enrolled in Blackfeet Community College’s School of Nursing in 2019. Four years later, she became the first person to earn a four-year degree from the college and the first person to receive a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from the school.

‘Not every college journey requires you to move far away from home’

When Boushie began her classes, she immediately loved the program. Her class was small, so lectures felt personal.

But Boushie’s journey wasn’t easy. In 2020 when COVID-19 hit, the program went entirely remote, and the tribe implemented other safety precautions, like curfews and quarantine orders. Boushie’s husband worked for the tribe’s COVID Incident Command team, so he’d often be exposed to the virus, which was especially stressful since Boushie’s mother-in-law had cancer and was particularly vulnerable. Working at home was also challenging, as Boushie’s young daughter also transitioned to remote learning.

Boushie lost her mother-in-law during the pandemic, and a few months later in November 2021, her sister Krystan Briere was hit and killed by a car.

“It was really, really hard,” Boushie said. “But my teachers understood what I was going through. I was so stressed out that it was hard to retain anything, but they really took time to make sure I understood the content and was able to join classes from home.”

As Boushie advanced through the program, she took advantage of clinical and leadership opportunities, and she did a capstone on the labor and delivery floor at Benefis Health System in Great Falls.

Boushie attributes her success to her family and is grateful her husband and daughter supported her through the four-year program. At the graduation ceremony, instructors asked Boushie who she wanted to receive her BSN pin from, and she chose her 12-year-old daughter, Kiera.

“I wanted to show my daughter that if you work hard, it pays off and that college is really fun,” she said. “I loved nursing school. I loved that I could spend time with my family at home studying. And I wanted to show her that not every college journey requires you to move far away from home. I wanted to show her that you can achieve your dreams at home, at a community college.”

Grant said that before Blackfeet Community College established the BSN program, people who wanted to get a bachelor’s degree in nursing would need to leave the reservation, often to attend MSU Bozeman or Salish Kootenai College on the Flathead Reservation.

The opportunity for people to instead earn this degree in Browning, where they have support systems, family and community, she said, is critical.

“Dale, when she lost her sister, she was able to have her mom and her other sisters for support,” Grant said. “We are such a connected community. So to go through a tragedy and not be with your family, it creates depression. If she was at MSU or SKC, I’m not sure she would’ve graduated. It made a huge difference for her to process the loss of her sister with others. I know that was big for her.”

When asked about Dale as a student, Grant said she could cry.

“You know when people have that drive?” she said. “You can just see it. That they have a goal, and that’s what they’re going to do. That’s Dale. She worked so hard, and she did everything she needed to do to succeed. I’m very proud to have her serving our people.”

Since graduating, Boushie went on to work at the Glacier Care Center, which offers long-term care in Cut Bank, where she oversees residents and a team of Certified Nursing Assistants.

“It’s a big role,” she said. “Patients sometimes ask if I’m Blackfeet or they say they heard I graduated from Blackfeet Community College, and they say, ‘I’m so proud of you.’ I just love getting to see my patients every day — they trust you with so much of their life.”

Eventually, Boushie hopes to one day work in maternal health care, which she said is especially important to her as Native Americans are more likely to have high-risk pregnancies.

“I’d love to help a mom through every single stage of the process,” she said. “I want to make sure they feel comfortable and safe. It’s such a wild experience, and I’d like to help make it a wonderful one.”

This article was first published in the Missoulian. 

Dateline:

BROWNING, Montana