A lifelong learner leads nursing forward
In every healthcare university, there are leaders whose journeys, passions, and commitments shape the experiences of students and the future.
The Beyond the CV series looks past the bios of the deans leading UTHealth Houston’s schools to explore their personal motivations, defining moments, and guiding philosophies.
In this installment, Diane Santa Maria, DrPH, MSN, RN, PHNA-BC, dean of Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston, as well as the nursing school’s Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair in Nursing Education Leadership and The Jane and Robert Cizik Distinguished Chair, shares her journey into nursing, shaped in part by her mother’s career as a pediatric nurse and her own experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. She reflects on her passion for public health, the importance of lifelong learning and curiosity in nursing, and the role nurses play in designing solutions with patients and communities at the center.
Why did you pursue a career in nursing and research?
I went into nursing because I wanted to do public health. As a little kid, I thought I wanted to be a social worker. I would watch all those commercials where children were starving and just felt like I had to do something to make a difference. My mom was a pediatric nurse, so throughout that whole process of self-discovery, I realized that nursing was it probably around sixth grade.
My first job as a nurse out of school was as a Peace Corps volunteer, and I worked in the Dominican Republic. No running water and no electricity, on HIV prevention projects with adolescents. Through that experience, I realized I wanted to work with adolescents for the rest of my life.
When I came back, I ended up getting my degree in public health nursing and continued my work with adolescents with Indian Health Services. The further you get into that work, the more you realize not everybody gets to grow up in a great place or have a great experience as a child. That can really set them up to face challenges later in life.
I wanted to work at that intersection, helping kids who needed some help to be able to make healthy decisions and live their best lives.
You've accomplished so much in your career. How do you keep evolving professionally and stay motivated?
My doctoral degree is in behavioral sciences. Part of that was because I wanted to figure out how to design interventions that help make the healthy choice the easiest choice. I think a lot of that really dovetails into leadership, because you spend a lot of time trying to figure out what motivates people. What are the factors that either interfere with making the right decision, or that just make it difficult for them to move forward? I think that, as a behavioral scientist with a nursing background, I am really centered around the human and the human experience and just trying to meet people where they're at and come up with solutions that work for them.
I think one of the key things that's really helped me throughout my career is that I’ve spent a lot of time with people outside of nursing and academics—leaders in industry, leaders in tech, lawyers, all sorts of people from different walks of life. I’ve found that learning lessons from them helps me to figure out how to solve some of the major problems that we have in healthcare.
Tell us about a proud moment in your career where you greatly impacted a student and why that means so much to you.
I think students in nursing are an aggressively altruistic group. You get to surround yourself with people who are incredible. I think for me, what has really been impactful is helping to open the doors for students who wouldn't otherwise have access to becoming a nurse, whether that's because they didn't have any exposure to nursing in their early years, in seventh, eighth grade or high school. They didn't know anybody who was a nurse, or they didn’t have the financial resources to become a nurse. I think putting together the Future Nurses Fund and trying to make nursing school more accessible has been fantastic to see come to fruition.
It was years of beating the drum and trying to figure out exactly how to get that done. It's not an easy task. It costs a lot of money, and it takes resources from the state, from the institution, and from philanthropies and the community. I had to really get behind it as something that was important for our community. And I think once we really helped people understand that this is how you solve the nursing shortage, that's where we've got some traction. I'm so proud of UTHealth Houston for taking the lead and supporting us on this and making sure that we had the resources we needed to make this happen.
Is there a standout moment during your time as dean that makes you most proud?
When I first started, we were really just starting off as a research institution, and at the time back in 2017 and 2018, we didn't have a very good infrastructure to support faculty research. In the last six or seven years, we've risen from completely unranked to No. 8 in the country. And that's just a number. But when you really look at the kind of research that can now happen and how it helps people in the community, helps caregivers support their elder companions, helps people who are having a stroke prevent depression, and helps people avoid HIV, cancer, and substance use, that's where you see the magnitude of what we've been able to do. It’s incredible.
What do you think makes UTHealth Houston and Cizik School of Nursing unique compared to others?
We've got a cadre of people here who are just amazing. The amount of care that people have as nurses, just in general, but then for each other, as colleagues, and as students, is incredible. Everyone really rallies behind each other to make sure that we're all succeeding. I think UTHealth Houston is unique because we're positioned in the Texas Medical Center. We're able to go to clinical facilities where our students are going to see things they wouldn’t see in other places. The amount and level of training that you can get here is unparalleled, whether you're a faculty member or a student.
What qualities do you want graduates to leave with as they pursue the next steps in their career?
As a nurse, it's critical that you stay curious, that you continue to be a lifelong learner and that you have that intellectual humility that allows you to continue to progress as a person and as a professional. I hope that all of our students leave understanding that the human, the person, the patient, the community—those are the people that we care about. Those are the people who have the answers, and keeping them at the center of everything we do is what helps us be better providers.
What excites you most about the future of nursing, and how is your school is preparing for the future?
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of years. We're at this sort of critical point where AI is coming in and changing things so rapidly. We've already been through really interesting experiences with COVID and all sorts of challenges, including nursing shortages and whatnot. We know how to meet a challenge.
If there's something a nurse knows how to do, it's solve a problem. I think the issue is going to be: How do we stay curious, and how do we make sure that we continue to be problem-solvers as we progress in healthcare and work to meet the needs of a growing elderly population.
Tell us one thing about yourself that most people don't know.
I think probably what’s more unique, without getting too personal, is that my first job was as a Peace Corps volunteer. It's very unusual for a nurse to take the NCLEX and leave for the Peace Corps 14 days later. A typical nurse goes in, works med-surge and, you know, does the sort of hospital thing, which I did at certain points. But I think even back then, what it taught me, despite the resistance and difficulty of convincing people, was that it was going to be okay and that it was the right choice for me.
There are so many ways that people can use their nursing skills to have incredibly wonderful and impactful careers, whether that ends up being in politics, law, or business. We just have the kinds of skills that are transferable across industries.
I also have three teenagers, which, you know, keeps me very grounded. As a family, we love to travel. We love to hike and go to national parks. We're trying to get to all the national parks here in the U.S. and are doing a good job at sort of checking them off. We like to be out in nature. You know, a good alpine lake will do wonders for your brain.
