Elliana Tenenbaum is just 18 and already two years into a nursing career at Dignity Health — St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, California.
"I love the team I work with, and I don't feel any different than any staff," says Tenenbaum, who works in the emergency room of the hospital in a community that's just west of Los Angeles. "I feel so blessed."
In 2023, when she applied for nursing positions at hospitals, Tenenbaum recalls being unsure about what the reception would be. Given how things have worked out for her at St. John's, she needn't have worried.
Denise Richardson, emergency director of nursing at St. John's, calls Tenenbaum "a ray of sunshine" in St. John's emergency room. "The ER has multiyear staff — 29 years, 39 years. I've been here 20 years," Richardson says. "Having a young individual passionate about her community revitalized the staff and increased motivation."
Learning early, and from dad
Tenenbaum, a native of Ventura County, California, shadowed her father, a primary care physician in private practice, at a young age. In high school, she enrolled in dual-credit courses to ease her college load.
"I packed in as much as I could to complete nursing prerequisites and grew up with my dad, learning a lot from him, one of the most caring practitioners of all time," Tenenbaum says.
When she earned a bachelor's in nursing from Arizona State University at 16, she became the program's youngest graduate.
Tenenbaum is now working on her master in nursing from Vanderbilt University. She expects to graduate in August and plans to immediately pursue a doctorate in nursing practice from Duke University.
Meanwhile, she continues to learn on the job at St. John's. Most of the hospital's ER patients are Hispanic and their ailments vary widely.
"It can be tough, from young and old and in between," Tenenbaum says. "There are kids with coughs and the elderly with serious conditions who could be dying."
Though St. John's ER is not designated as a trauma care unit, she says it gets it share of high-risk cases, including gunshot wounds, drug overdoses, alcohol withdrawal and alcohol intoxication.
"No one wants to be in the ER or embarrass themselves, so it inspires every nurse to bring healing to others in the time of their most need," Tenenbaum says.
She takes a holistic approach in her emergency care, being attuned to the mind, body and soul needs of patients. "You get to provide for patients, in that you took away pain in a few minutes, or in the hospital that you took five minutes to talk to a patient to comfort them," she says.
'A tremendously positive experience'
Tenenbaum was raised Jewish, which she says instilled in her "the mission on earth to make the world a better place, to help others heal."
She says her beliefs run parallel to St. John's Catholic mission to embody empathy, compassion and benevolence. The hospital is part of CommonSpirit Health, the nation's largest Catholic health system.
"I have a very strong Jewish faith, and those values align with the Catholic mission of treating each individual with respect and dignity with autonomy," Tenenbaum says.
Richardson says Tenenbaum embodies the Catholic mission in her approach to her care.
"Through her questioning attitude, learning the best away to approach a situation, such as if there's a better process to help the most number of patients in the least amount of time and showing them human kindness in the process, she constantly tries to improve her processes," Richardson says.
When Tenenbaum applied for her first nursing position, she researched local emergency rooms but knew about St. John's through her nursing program, other practitioners, family and friends.
"To me, the name speaks for itself — Dignity," she says. "It's been a tremendously positive experience."
In August, she will be leaving St. John's to head for Duke in North Carolina. She's not sure what will come after that. "If the opportunity presents itself," Tenenbaum says, "I would love to work with a Catholic organization again."