Ana Lucrecia Laynez Escobar

"At first my father didn't want me to continue my studies. He had given that opportunity to my older sisters but they broke his rules which were. NO BOYFRIENDS and ONLY STUDY, NOTHING ELSE. They never graduated. They went to school in the city, had boyfriends, got married and pregnant. I had to convince my father that I shouldn't be punished because they broke the rules. I told him that I was certain I would achieve my goals and become a nurse. I am studying now and my parents are really proud of me, but more importantly I am really proud of myself." Ana Lucrecia is a nursing student and a community health promoter for The Coffee Trust in Chel, Guatemala.

Delia Paine

"The experience of being pregnant and giving birth offers a unique intimate connection of bringing that tiny being into the world. Even once the baby is born your body reacts physically to their cries. It's a special thing about being a woman." - Delia Paine is a button artist with ViaDelia

Sister Mary Ellen Lacy

"I was going to become a doctor and then along the way I decided to become a nurse. It was the best change of path I could have made. As a nurse I was really able to care for my patients and be with my patients in a way that doctors can't. People always remember the nurses that take of them in the hospital because we are the ones by their sides. Later I became a lawyer and then a Nun. Now I work in impoverished communities and I get to encounter God everyday." - Sister Mary Ellen Lacy is a public housing attorney with the Legal Aid Society in East Illinois and part of Nuns on The Bus 2016.

Olinka Foster

"After graduating from the University of New Mexico with a Biology degree,  I applied for a soil science job in Farmington,NM.  I was warned that the man who ran the lab, the Chemist, was difficult to work with. If he approved me, I had the job.  He was a much older man, Danish and wore a pissed off expression. He was a brilliant scientist, and he approved me and went on to teach me how to soil testing by hand rather than with instruments.  We also both loved photography and one day I said, "There's a Diane Arbus show in Los Angeles - I wish I could see it." And he said, "Then go."I said there was no way I could go. I have to work and I didn't want to travel that far alone. He said, "Don't be one of those people that never sees or does anything in your life because you're afraid. Life is short - just go. I'll pay for the train ticket and clear your schedule." I took the train by myself from Farmington to LA, it was a great trip. He was the first person I told that I wanted to go to nursing school. And he told me at one point that he approved me being hired because I was nice to look at. Maybe it was a sexist reason for hiring me, but working for him changed my life." - Olinka Foster is a Clinical Research Associate with Veterans Affairs and a BSN/RN.

Ruth Lemansky

“Nursing has been so natural for me because it incorporates so many female characteristics and I get to bring my womanly nature into my work. It makes caring for my patients fun, like I am spending time with a friend and not at work.” Ruth is a single mother and a nurse practitioner at  El Centro Family Health in Embudo, New Mexico.  "I’m allowed to bring my emotions to work, its acceptable. I can coo over my patients but because I am a woman it isn’t seen as creepy.”