Cross the Mackinac Bridge, head west and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is a painting come to life: Deep blue waves crashing on the shoreline to the left and a seemingly endless formation of green forest to the right.
Small mom-and-pop buildings selling the culinary staple of the north — pasties — litter the two-lane highway, U.S. 2, en route to Escanaba, a town of 12,000 located a short jaunt southwest of the Hiawatha National Forest.
“It's a beautiful area,” said Mindy Turchin, BSN ’17, a registered nurse who works in the Emergency Department at the OSF St. Francis Escanaba Hospital. “We do have a lot of things to offer families and people, recreational wise. The sense of community is huge here.”
But with that beauty comes a price: Access to healthcare is not abundant in the area. The Escanaba hospital is the only one for at least 50 miles in any direction, which means it pulls in a wide variety of patients from the more developed town of Escanaba as well as its many rural neighbors.
“Even driving through the U.P., you can look around, you can see it looks typical like everywhere else,” Turchin said. “What we do see, though, with health care are people that are in our surrounding areas that don't jump out … who live here, live in the woods, don't have running water, don't have electricity, and haven't had health care in 30 years that come in.
“You stabilize them in the ER but then (it’s like) how can we help the quality of their life outside of there?”
That can force nurses like Turchin, who grew up in Escanaba, to adjust their approach to treatment, including identifying a long-term health care provider so the patient has support beyond discharge from the hospital.
The level IV trauma center is often the first — and only — place patients in the area can go to for significant health issues. It is also home to the area’s only flight medic crew and landing pad. In all, more than 18,000 people come into the hospital’s Emergency Department each year.
Turchin started at the hospital in 2012, after earning her associate’s degree in nursing from a local community college. She previously had earned a degree in human resources from MSU and lived downstate for a period but realized health care — and Escanaba — were where she belonged. After a few years in her role, she wanted to further her education and enrolled in MSU’s all-online RN to BSN program, earning her degree in 2017.
“The RN to BSN program through Michigan State University is completely online,” Turchin said. “It allowed me to jump from my associates degree to my bachelor's degree in a relatively short amount of time while doing it from home, six hours away from where the campus actually is, which made it convenient.
“I was an adult already working full time, two children at home. It made that transition a lot easier for me to do. I could still enjoy my family life, but still pursue my education and do things for myself as well.”
Turchin appreciated her program’s faculty getting to know the students.
“I felt like I knew the faculty a little better,” she said of choosing the Michigan State University College of Nursing, which has nursing students in clinical rotations in most of the state’s counties. “They got to know you a little more on a personal basis. They ask you more personal questions. I felt like many of them knew my kids’ names and knew what they were into, and it just makes them more approachable.”
With two kids, a husband and a full-time job in health care, Turchin keeps busy but said she won’t rule out an advanced degree in her future. One thing is for certain: Turchin can’t picture herself anywhere else.
“I am a part of bringing quality care to Yoopers.”
