Major: Respiratory Care
After her application for a health care program at College of DuPage was rejected, Kathryn Ziegler was unsure of what to do next.
Then an unexpected opportunity led her to the Respiratory Care program.
“I had no interest in respiratory and didn’t even know the program existed,” she said. “Program Chair Barb Coe came across my name and academic record and reached out to me to apply for her program. Feeling very down and depressed from the rejection, I viewed this new opportunity as ‘one door closed, another door opening’ and immediately contacted her to find out more.”
Ziegler had previously earned an associate degree from COD and attended another community college for phlebotomy, but she didn’t feel prepared for her future job. However, after being accepted into the Respiratory Care program, she found her confidence building.
“I wish I would have attended COD’s Phlebotomy program, as the students seemed to complete it with much more confidence than I had,” she said. “At COD, I was the first student in my class to be offered a student position at the hospital, and once I graduated, I had multiple hospitals trying to recruit me.”
Armed with her Associate in Applied Science in Respiratory Care, Ziegler completed COD’s 3+1 program with Concordia University Chicago and earned a bachelor’s degree in health care management. She is an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) specialist and considers this as having come full circle, as she first heard about perfusion at COD.
“When I originally applied for the other health career program at COD, I needed to take prerequisite classes,” she said. “I signed up for two, but one of them was not the correct class! I accidently signed up for Survey of Health Careers and it ended up being fantastic—I would recommend it for anyone trying to get into health care. The basis of the class was picking a different health care career each week and researching the amount of schooling, the salary, the demand/need and other topics. I picked perfusion one week because I had no idea what it was. I never once thought while researching it that I would one day apply for it.”
She did apply to Rush University’s Master of Science in Cardiovascular Perfusion program. While she was selected for an interview, she was not admitted to the program. Instead of reapplying, Ziegler works as a PRN at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she does adult and pediatric respiratory as well as ECMO. She also works as a travel health care provider, taking contracts in DeKalb and Milwaukee. Her future hope is to expand beyond the Midwest.
As for COD, Ziegler said it is never too old to go back to school.
“You should first talk with a counselor,” she said. “My next advice is to take it one step at a time. I kept telling myself I was done with school because I was over it, but I went from finishing an associate degree to a bachelor’s and hopefully to a master’s degree.”
Learn more about the Respiratory Care program at College of DuPage