Alaina Bohnert

“Everyone is very individual, and [treatment] is very individual to that patient because everyone is so different.”

-Alaina Bohnert

Alaina Bohnert hopes to become an intensive care or trauma nurse. When Alaina isn’t working, she enjoys traveling, spending time with friends and family, and doing anything outdoors.

Alaina Bohnert prioritizes prevention education in nursing career

Alaina Bohnert was born into a family of nurses; her mother, sister, aunt, and grandmother all impacted lives through nursing. Growing up, Alaina was determined to pursue a different career than her family members until she graduated high school. She started kitchen work and tray delivery to patients at the Mary Greeley Medial Center in Ames and found joy by making patients feel better when they went through some of their worst times.

Alaina immediately started acting on this newfound motivation for nursing. She earned her associate’s degree from Des Moines Area Community College and pursued her bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) at Iowa State University thereafter. While attending Iowa State, she continued working at Mary Greeley as a registered nurse in the emergency department.

“I really like fast-paced environments, and I really like taking care of sick people. I just enjoy that intensity of people coming through the door and you don’t really know what’s going on; you’re just trying to solve problems as fast as you can to help save the patient,” Alaina said.

Alaina said she specifically enjoyed Iowa State’s emphasis on prevention education because in the hospital she sees many patients with chronic illnesses that could have been treated prior to hospitalization. Through a field trip to Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Alaina gained additional perspective to preventative health and treatment.

“We looked at [Pine Ridge’s] access to food, the environment overall, the housing, and the schools,” she said. “We were really there to just learn ourselves and understand differences in populations that we see here in the United States.”

That experience gave Alaina insight about medicine and treatment for people from a variety of backgrounds, and prepared her to see diversity in the hospital setting.

“I see a lot of different people from different walks of life, different political affiliations, different beliefs,” Alaina said. “We try our best to incorporate whatever it is they like to do safely. [Treatment] is very individual to that patient because everyone is so different. I think [nursing] has made me a better person in that way.”