A Buckeye Nursing Family

by Susan Neale

When you look at Kareen Loper, MS, FNP, (’99) Ariel Young, CLC, and Raven Arellano, RN, you see a lot of admiration, determination, laughter and love.

“My mom taught me her work ethic,” Raven said. “She’s really good at handling stress, too. She just puts her head down and gets it done.”

Ariel agreed: “She just does it!”

Kareen started her BSN the week after she gave birth to the twins. Now Ariel and Raven are both studying at the College of Nursing like their mom did. Raven is studying to be a family nurse practitioner in the College of Nursing’s Grad Entry program and Ariel is in the same program to become a certified nurse midwife.

Kareen’s daughters call her “the smartest nurse we’ve ever met” when it comes to helping them study. “If there’s something that doesn’t make sense, she can explain it absolutely flawlessly, and it will click,” Raven said. “She’ll quiz me while I’m doing meal prep or folding laundry. Quite a team player.”

As a critical care charge nurse, Kareen had to train others on pharmacology and pathophysiology. Now she makes her daughters “go above and beyond what is taught,” she said. “My kids get it … they’re at the top of their game.” She smiled and added, “As far as kids go, I really hit the jackpot.”

It’s clear that her daughters admire her, too. “I definitely learned from my mom how to work hard,” Ariel said. “And how to get what you want out of life and to work for something until you get it.”

Anticrastination

Kareen admitted that as a student and young mother, getting to classes and clinicals, working off and on as a hospital emergency department tech, taking care of her children and finding time to study was exhausting. Her aunt watched her daughters, but when things fell through, Kareen sometimes brought them to class in their double stroller. In addition, her mother was seriously ill. Despite feeling overwhelmed at times, she made it through on sheer grit and determination.

“I have a word I made up: I’m an anticrastinator,” Kareen said, adding modestly: “It’s because of my kids that I have this ability.” For example, she had one paper a week due throughout the quarter for an elective class in world music. Aware that her busy life might prevent her from completing the assignment, she found a babysitter and wrote all of the papers the very first night.

Kareen graduated from Ohio State with her BSN in ’99 and later earned an MS and became a family nurse practitioner. Now she is doing telehealth visits and triage on weekends, which she describes as her dream job. “I can work from home, set my own schedule and I have my weeks free so I can watch Ariel’s kids while Ariel goes to school.”

Twins on different paths

Ariel and Raven (who turn 27 in November) followed different paths to nursing, and neither one started out in that direction.

Raven majored in biology and after graduating considered medical school or becoming a physician’s assistant. “I thought the nursing ship had sailed – that it was too late to do that. But then I heard about the Grad Entry program,” she said. Now she works on Tower 5 at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center East Hospital’s cardiovascular unit, is very active in her church and is interested in infectious disease in low-income settings. “My faith is why I do what I do,” Raven said. She is on track to graduate in May 2024.

Ariel got her BA in intercultural studies, got married, had two children – a boy and a girl – and started a master’s program at a seminary in Kentucky, only to realize that her true passion was women’s reproductive health. “I got really passionate about moms and infants and the mother-infant relationship, and I decided midwifery was the route for me,” Ariel explained. She applied to Grad Entry at Ohio State, came home and took all of her prerequisites in two semesters. Now she is studying on a full scholarship and working at Ohio State East Hospital’s ICU as a tech.

Running and inventing together

Ariel, Raven and Kareen do a lot together. Besides being star students, the twins are competitive distance runners. Both broke records and earned titles as runners at their undergraduate colleges. At the time of our interview, they were training for the Columbus Marathon.

They’re also working on an invention with their mom at the College of Nursing’s Innovation Studio. Kareen hinted that it will improve safety at the bedside for medication administration and save lives and millions of dollars for hospital systems.

When people ask the twins how they manage to do so much, Raven is quick to answer. “My mom – she modeled it.”