The Heart of a Caregiver

Nov 28, 2022

When Dalissa Suprina learned she had received a Debra Coffman Howe Nursing Scholarship from Palm Health Foundation, she burst into tears. She would not have to abandon her life’s purpose—a purpose she found at the age of 12 as her family and her home country of Haiti was devasted by the 2010 earthquake that killed over 220,000 people.

Sadly, Dalissa’s mother was one of the people who died. After her passing, Dalissa became the primary caregiver to her grandmother. Sick with cholera that was ravaging Haiti at the time, her grandmother spent two years in and out of the hospital. Dalissa spent every day at her side, taking on the responsibility for bathing her and tending to her daily needs when doctors and nurses couldn’t.

Consumed in the loving care of her grandmother, Dalissa’s desire to become a bedside nurse grew. After emigrating to the U.S. in 2015, Dalissa continued to care for her grandmother while she pursued her studies, graduating from high school and beginning the nursing program at Palm Beach State College with her sights set on becoming a wound care nurse and nurse practitioner working with the elderly.

As a certified nursing assistant at Delray Medical Center, Dalissa is practicing while she studies, providing the same level of care to her patients that she did to her grandmother. “Being passionate, understanding, and empathetic is a must when it comes to being a nurse,” she said, recounting the story of a deeply depressed double amputee patient she prayed with and listened to when no one else had the time.

Dalissa is exactly the kind of scholar Debra Coffman Howe envisioned supporting through her scholarship fund: A nurse who aspires to bedside patient care and who believes as Dalissa does that “being a nurse is like having a superpower and enough knowledge to heal people and send them home to their families.”

Dalissa sees Debra as having her own superpower. “You have to have a big heart to do this for other people and allow students like me to have an opportunity,” she said. “Her scholarship saved me. It was a miracle.”

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