Birmingham Baptist nurse honored for teaching

It’s a calling and a mission.” That’s the way Angela Collins sees her vocation as a critical-care nurse and clinical associate professor of nursing at the University of Alabama.
   
Collins, a member of Riverchase Baptist Church, Birmingham, in Shelby Baptist Association, was one of three nursing professors nationwide to be honored in 2005 with the National Excellence in Teaching Award from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses.
   
Receiving the award at the national conference in New Orleans was a special moment for Collins, a 1977 graduate of the Samford University Ida V. Moffett School of Nursing. “I got to thank my parents for their financial and loving investment in my life, and then I also got to thank my Creator because His goodness and mercy had been blessing me all the days of my life,” she said.
   
The award was “affirmation that I have been listening to what God asks me to do,” Collins said. 
   
Paying attention to God’s voice led Collins to her life’s call of nursing. This calling was especially clear to Collins during two experiences in her life. When she was 8 years old, her father severed a finger in an accident. Collins said her mother and sister “freaked out” but she was able to apply pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding until medical help arrived. At that moment, Collins knew she wanted to be a nurse and that goal never changed.
   
Years later, Collins had a near-death experience when she hemorrhaged from a ruptured tubal pregnancy. In that experience, she saw “how significant the presence of a nurse is and so, through that loss experience and that stressful time, I was able to see what my role needed to be to other people who were in that same position.”
   
Through her career, Collins said she “hopes to be salt and light for my students and an instrument of God’s love to the patients.” Even though she works primarily in secular environments, she has learned to express her faith by using “very careful wording.” 
   
Learning to listen to patients and students has been an important skill developed over the years, Collins said. 
   
“I’ve found that if I practice listening, I will hear what needs to be said and how it needs to be said. Just like Jesus assured the disciples in Matthew 10:19 that they didn’t need to worry about what words to use and that He would give them the words in the moment they need it, I would say that I’ve found that to be true.” 
   
After 31 years as a critical-care nurse and nursing professor, Collins’ commitment to her calling grows stronger every year. 
   
In addition to her full-time position as professor, she works one day a week in the critical-care unit at UAB Hospital in Birmingham. She is certified to work in any intensive care unit, including surgical, heart and transplant units. 
   
And every other weekend, Collins works as an advance practice nurse at Princeton Baptist Medical Center in Birmingham. “That means you have a really sick person, and they want someone who has seen (that illness) before,” she said. “What I offer is that ability to know what might happen next.”
   
Collins is grateful for her association with other Christian medical professionals at Princeton BMC. 
   
“I thrive because I work alongside so many Christian men and women there who are really committed to being a witness for God through the healing arts.”