Roane State Community College

February 22, 2022

By Bob Fowler
Roane State staff writer

Jana Griffin has tended to those who are dying and those being born.

She’s been an end-of life nurse and has also provided care to women with high-risk pregnancies as they give birth.

Caring for the dying made her more empathetic, she said. “It grew my skills as a nurse and as a person when it comes to relating to people.”

Helping women with high-risk pregnancies reinforced her long-term ambition to become a midwife. Her goal, she says, is “to provide a more natural approach to birth for the women in this area.”

Griffin said her widely diverging experiences as a registered nurse have a common foundation: the education she received at Roane State Community College.

“Roane State provided a great base for where I am now,” said Griffin, 22. She and Benjamin Landis exchanged wedding vows last February and now make their home in Knoxville.

Griffin currently works the night shift at Tennova’s Physician’s Regional Medical Center in Powell while she takes online courses in midwifery from Frontier Nursing University, based in Kentucky. “It’s definitely a balancing act,” she said of her busy schedule.

Griffin was at first home-schooled and then enrolled for her freshman and sophomore years at River’s Edge Christian Academy in Knoxville. She took dual enrollment courses for her junior and senior years at Roane State as well as another college.

In dual enrollment, high school students take courses taught by the respective colleges’ instructors and receive both high school and college credits.

Griffin said she commuted to Roane State’s Oak Ridge Branch Campus for classes. Microbiology Professor Dr. Pamela Siergiej was a memorable instructor, she said. “She took the time to explain things and made it fun where you wanted to learn.” Lessons learned in Siergiej’s classes later came in handy in midwifery school, she added.

After graduation, Griffin said she applied only to Roane State for nursing school. Friends who were already nurses recommended the community college’s program, she said. “The college has a reputation for preparing students for the real world.”

“The overall program was hard,” she recalled, “but it prepared me really well.”

Studies were split between classroom lectures and clinicals, where students and their instructors go into area hospitals and take care of patients.

“The hours were long,” Griffin said, “especially with clinicals.” Classes were held at Roane State’s Center for Health Sciences in Knoxville. “The instructors did their best to not make it overwhelming. They genuinely cared about the students and wanted everyone to be successful.”

One standout instructor, Griffin said, was Associate Professor Teresa Lucas, a nurse practitioner. “She did an excellent job of making everything attainable for us to understand.”

Griffin graduated with an associate of science degree in nursing in May 2019 and then received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Tennessee in July 2020. She’s just starting midwifery school.

Additional information on dual enrollment opportunities for students can be found online at roanestate.edu/dualstudies and roanestate.edu/middlecollege. For information on Roane State’s nursing program, visit roanestate.edu/nursing.