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CHRISTINE

LEWANDOWSKI

2016 GRADUATE

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, Christine Lewandowski’s
career took an unexpected turn. Outside of her regular job, the
longtime, New Jersey-based emergency department nurse manager had
been volunteering for the Federal Air Marshals program. “Immediately after
9/11, the government expanded the Air Marshals program significantly,
and many emergency nurses who had been volunteering were now being
hired,” says Christine, who started her nursing career in critical care in
1979 but began working in emergency medicine in 1982.

Within a month of 9/11, Christine started a company, Freedom Nurses,
that provides staffing to federal sectors. She also completed training on
the medical management of weapons of mass destruction and accepted a
position as a supervisory occupational health nurse at the Transportation
Security Administration (TSA), Federal Air Marshal Service.
Finding the right time for the BSN

For the decade that followed, Christine focused on her job managing
the occupational medical office for TSA—and on putting two of her three
children through college. “It had always been a personal and professional
goal of mine to go back for the BSN, but I just wasn’t able to make it work
while working full time and paying tuition at two schools,” she says.
But when New Jersey made history and became one of the first states to
take the Institute of Medicine’s recommendation that all nurses become
BSN prepared by 2020 a step further—by introducing the “BSN in 10”
legislation in 2012—Christine got more serious. “American Sentinel came
recommended by someone I knew, and I did my own program and cost
comparison to other RN to BSN programs, and felt it was the right place for
me,” she says.
Christine started the BSN in 2012, along with three of her TSA coworkers.
“We were in it together, which was so important from a moral support
perspective,” she says. “It was daunting to go back to school at my age,
but it was a market reality…I needed to. So when I made it through, I was
proud. American Sentinel benefitted me as a manager.” In 2013, Christine
graduated with the BSN.

www.americansentinel.edu

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