Jen Huynh: Ohio NAPNAP Student of the Year

by Susan Neale 

Jen Huynh, RN, didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do for a career when she entered college, so she took a meandering path through various healthcare and science majors instead of settling on one thing right away.

“I knew I wanted to go into the medical field – I’ve always had interests in science and medicine. It was just a matter of trying to figure out what path was best for me. So I bounced around between a few majors,” including pre-med, biology and psychology, Huynh explained. 

While looking for a career, Huynh said, “I was always very drawn to the hospital.” Growing up, she often went along with family members who had emigrated from Vietnam and weren’t fluent in English to help interpret for them. 

“Every time we went, I was excited,” Huynh said. “I really looked up to all of the providers and I felt very safe and drawn to the medical world. I felt like what they were doing was so special.”

She remembers a nurse making a home healthcare visit to her grandmother. “She took the time to talk to my grandma using an interpreter and getting to know her beyond her medical diagnosis – she asked about her culture and how she grew up. My grandma doesn’t often get the opportunity to talk to people that way, having lived most of her life in Vietnam and not really speaking English. Watching that interaction was really powerful – it helped put my grandma at ease and I was impressed by that compassion.”

Huynh says she “absolutely loves” volunteering and helping in her community and that, too, helped her make her career choice. Her many volunteer experiences include Riverside Methodist Hospital, Special Olympics, the Mid-Ohio Foodbank and the Columbus Dream Center breakfast program.

She also worked several healthcare-related jobs and while working alongside nurses at the bedside as a PCA at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in 2020, she decided nursing was what she wanted to do. She was already a junior in college by then and starting over seemed like a long road. Then she found the College of Nursing’s Graduate Entry Master of Science program, which enables students with a non-nursing bachelor’s degree to earn a Master of Science in Nursing and become a nurse practitioner. It was perfect for her goals.

Born and raised in Columbus, she had big motivators to go to Ohio State for graduate school. “I love Ohio State so much, and all of my family is here in Columbus. I feel like it’s a great fit. And it’s very highly rated,” she added, citing the U.S. News & World Report rankings for Ohio State’s pediatric primary care specialty: #5 in the nation, #1 among public colleges of nursing. “So, I know I’m in good hands in that sense, too.”

Now in her second year of the Graduate Entry program, she has gained licensure and can proudly add “RN” to her name. “Jen Huynh, RN. It has a nice ring to it,” she said. Huynh loves her job providing care to children as an RN in the Infectious Diseases unit at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and is pursing the pediatric nurse practitioner specialty. 

Huynh said the Graduate Entry program has been “phenomenal. I think it really challenges me in ways that help me grow and everybody in the program has been very supportive and encouraging. So far, I’ve learned a lot and I feel well-prepared.” In fact, because of the work and dedication she has already demonstrated, the Ohio chapter of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP) named Huynh its 2025 Student of the Year.