Stephanie Caley, N.P. (11) is a shining example of resilience, optimism, and compassionate nursing. Since graduating from PLNU with her BSN, Caley has worked in labor and delivery and the operating room at St. Jude Medical Center, and has provided holistic care at Transformation Health. She finished her Master of Science in Nursing in 2023 and earned her Nurse Practitioner in early 2024. After taking time away from work following the birth of her second child, she started as a perinatal nurse practitioner in summer 2024.

From challenging childhood experiences to harrowing moments in nursing, the road hasn’t been easy for Caley. PLNU represented some of the bright moments in her life, and those experiences continue to stick with her. 

“Point Loma centered me in a time where I could’ve gone a very different route,” Caley said. “It would’ve been so easy to take a different route, but somehow I didn’t. I look back and now I think of how far I’ve come.”

The return to labor and delivery marks a big moment in Caley’s personal and professional journeys. In addition to having her second child, she’s also struggled with postpartum depression and was diagnosed with thyroid cancer (which led to her thyroid removal and recovery in early 2024). She chooses to see these as something of a blessing — she sees it as an opportunity to “slow down” in life — an attitude that’s a clear testament to her spirit of resilience and gratitude she’s developed throughout her life. 

“This year has been really transformative to me because I’ve felt like it’s been such an uphill battle,” Caley said. “My whole life, probably because of my childhood traumas, I’ve been in this high-functioning anxiety state, just running off fumes, and everyone in my life is [saying], ‘when are you going to slow down? Having cancer has finally helped me to slow down.”

Childhood, Church, and the Call of California

Caley described that challenges she had as a child created some of those habits to work hard — even excessively so — to feel like she was contributing value to others. She was born in Orange County but raised in Utah within the Mormon church. Her parents were divorced when she was 8, and even at that young age she realized her mother had substance abuse issues. She remembers “horrifying” moments about her mother including overdoses, disappearances, and suicide attempts. But despite those experiences, Caley still has many happy memories of her.

“She was a wonderful woman,” Caley said. “She could cook like nobody else, and she had the greatest laugh — she was hilarious. There were so many great things about her that I was lucky to [experience] with her.”

Caley lived in Utah with her mother but would often visit her father in California. In her middle school years, she began to visit California churches. One church she visited, Capo Beach Church, was unlike any church experience she had had before.

“I just realized such a change in my faith,” she said. “It feels like home.”

When she came back to Utah, she left the Mormon church — which was not easy, especially as a 12-year-old. But she soon found a very small non-denominational Christian church in Utah that she was drawn to. 

“I remember finding a very small church with maybe 25 members,” she said. “The youth group had six people — I got really deep into that.”

In high school, she moved to California to live with her father, and returned to Capo Beach Church. The transition from being a sophomore in Utah to a larger (and more competitive) school in California for her junior year was intimidating.

“Going from school in Utah from with a 3.9 GPA , where I was #2 in the class, to a school in California where I was [ranked around] 130… it was so hard on the ego! It was not easy for me.”

Discovering Loma

Nevertheless, Caley found roots in Orange County, and continued attending Capo Beach Church. Hopes for her future slowly began to take shape. 

“At one point during my senior year, my dad took me to San Diego, and he took me to Point Loma,” she said. “I remember driving onto campus and thinking, ‘I have to be here.’ From the moment I saw the cross, there was something so unspoken there that just felt like home.”

“I remember driving onto campus and thinking, ‘I have to be here.’ From the moment I saw the cross, there was something so unspoken there that just felt like home.”

Her interest in nursing had also developed during high school. After her aunt had premature twins, Caley remembers spending weekends visiting them in the NICU for three months, and helping take care of them. Being with them and getting to know the nurses that provided care for the twins helped stoke her passion for healthcare. Her stepmom was also a RN and helped add fuel to her inspiration. 

“That’s when I knew, I was going to be a nurse, I’m going to Point Loma — I’m doing it. And no one can stop me.”

Caley told her guidance counselor she had applied to PLNU and was planning to go — in fact, it was the only college she applied to. Discouragingly, her counselor didn’t seem to agree.

“[My counselor] told me I didn’t deserve to go there,” she remembers. “I had no funding, no planning, no anything. So she actually didn’t tell me anything about CalGrants or FAFSA.”

Thankfully, PLNU worked with Caley to help her come to the university. After she was accepted, one counselor at PLNU helped her to navigate the FAFSA and find the financial aid she truly needed. 

At the end of her first year at PLNU, she was admitted officially into the nursing program (which is standard for nursing students). The summer after, she was able to take a trip to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She remembers the trip deeply impacting her, especially in expanding her compassion for those around her.

“Being a teenager and being able to go to Rwanda and the DRC, that had such a massive impact in my life,” she said. “The amount of gratitude in my heart after that, that was such a solid foundation to start nursing school with. [At] what other school would I have done that?”

She worked three jobs while she was a student at PLNU, which was no small feat for a nursing student. She worked at the campus bookstore between classes, worked as a Certified Nursing Assistant, and planned birthday parties on the weekends. 

Caley had secured an internship with Sharp Mary-Birch for the summer before her senior year. But she had met her cap with her student loans and was afraid she wouldn’t be able to continue or graduate. Barbara Taylor, Ph.D., who served as Dean of the School of Nursing from 2006 to 2021, personally helped Caley get the financial aid she needed.

“In that moment, I called Dean Taylor, and I went over to her office,” she said. “I said ‘I don’t know if I can afford this internship,’ and she said “Just hold on!” She found me a scholarship that day to cover the cost for that internship.”

Death and New Beginnings

Caley completed all her undergraduate requirements and earned her BSN in 2011 as a first generation college graduate. After that, Caley provided child care and continued to plan birthday parties as she looked for a nursing role. She remembers babysitting for no fewer than 5 families her graduation year before finally finding a position in labor and delivery at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo just before Thanksgiving. She was set to begin in January.

The day after she was offered that position, on an afternoon following a busy day of watching children and shuttling them to and from sports events, Caley’s father asked her to drive up to visit him. As soon as Caley arrived, her father explained that her mother had died by suicide. The devastating loss followed her mother’s lengthy battles with depression and substance abuse. 

“Here I was getting ready to start my career, and [I was] burying my mom and going to her funeral,” she remembered tearfully. “It’s crazy thinking about everything in my life that has happened since then, and she’s not here.”

“Here I was getting ready to start my career, and [I was] burying my mom and going to her funeral,” she remembered tearfully. “It’s crazy thinking about everything in my life that has happened since then, and she’s not here.”

She remembers feeling like she had to suppress her grief as she began at Mission Hospital. Shortly after, she and a few other nurses at Mission moved to St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton (not affiliated with St. Jude Research Hospital), which happened to be the hospital she was born in.

“I ended up finding out one of the doctors on labor and delivery delivered me! [After I told him] he said, ‘That makes me feel old, but that’s awesome!’”

For years, she worked very hard to help with as many things as she could, taking on many large projects as a clinical nurse III, and training to scrub for surgery — all working to help bring new life into the world. But in early 2019, she assisted an emergency C-section which ended up being the most difficult moment in her career. Sadly both mother and child passed away during the surgery. Although tragedies invariably occur in healthcare, this one impacted her. 

“I had never been involved with anything like that,” she said. “There’s labor nurses who work in this field for 40 years and never see a maternal death.”

There were some parallels between that patient and her own experiences with her mother that devastated her. It made Caley realize how much unprocessed trauma she had been bottling up.

“They thought [the patient] had overdosed. I heard the word ‘overdose’ and in that minute, I was 13 years old again, finding my mom on the floor,” she said. “Finally, I was just reliving everything with my mom, it was finally my wakeup call. I had been suppressing so many things for so many years.”

After that, she had to step away from labor and delivery. She started therapy and began working in the perioperative program in the operating room and outpatient surgery at St. Jude.

Then, an OB-GYN from St. Jude left to start her own holistic practice, Transformation Health, which provides general care, aesthetics, and overall wellness, especially for women. Caley was excited to be part of it and worked there while continuing to work at St. Jude.

“I laid baseboard, I laid out policies and procedures, I designed the whole dehydration program, [and] learned botox, lasers, and aesthetics,” she said. 

Covid, Kids, and Earning her Nurse Practitioner

In 2020, Caley decided that earning her Nurse Practitioner could allow her to help more at Transformation Health. It would allow her to write prescriptions and more directly treat patients.

“March 3rd, I started my Nurse Practitioner; March 15th I found out I was pregnant with my first baby; and March 16th, Covid hit.”

Indeed, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and her first pregnancy, she was working two jobs and taking classes to advance her nursing education.

“Here I was working five days per week in the O.R., I was taking call in the evenings and on weekends. After my eight-hour shifts Tuesday [through] Friday I was going to Transformation Health. And I was taking 24-hour calls on weekends… and I was doing NP school, and I was pregnant.”

In November 2020, she had her son at St. Jude surrounded by her former coworkers. 

“It was wonderful,” she said. “It was really sweet. One of my friends who was my circulating nurse, I had delivered her last baby, and the nurse that took care of my son, I had taken care of her baby when she delivered. It was [the same] two nurses I had come to St. Jude with!”

In 2021, Caley left O.R. and began working in outpatient surgery, which she describes as “much less stressful.” Her daughter was born in 2023. Alongside her thyroid cancer, she also struggled with postpartum depression after having both children.

“That was terrifying for me,” she said. “I have this [debilitating] anxiety of becoming my mother and everything she went through.”

“That was terrifying for me,” she said. “I have this [debilitating] anxiety of becoming my mother and everything she went through.”

Becoming The Change Generation

But now, things have been looking up for Caley’s family, in ways big and small. She just earned her N.P. From Chamberlain university. She has continued to attend Capo Beach Church, which she’s attended since 2008. She and her husband recently won over $100,000 as contestants on the Price is Right. Now, she’s returning to labor and delivery as a perinatal nurse practitioner in Orange County.

“I feel like this year has been really transformative for me,” she said. “ I’m coming into self-love and self-care, and I’ve just learned this year to love myself how I am now.”

Years of therapy have helped Caley to sharpen the tools to decompress, find healthy ways to process her traumas, and learn to say no. 

“There’s a huge component of compassion and empathy that we develop from that trauma, that we need to be loved. But sometimes it can be detrimental–you can become a “yes-man.” I’m still a recovering yesser.” 

She believes that all nurses should pay close attention to their mental health, especially those who are experiencing anxiety, which can lead to burnout. 

“Compartmentalizing is really not good for you,” she said. “I think a dramatic change is coming in the healthcare community. There needs to be self-care, there needs to be mental health resources for the healthcare providers. You can’t just solely focus on every other person.”

Caley is excited to be returning to labor and delivery. She shared that her new position will have more flexible hours, which will let her devote plenty of time to her favorite job — being a mom.

“My daughter is just so sweet!” she enthused. “I have just one dimple, and my mother had the other one. But now my daughter has that one.

“Every time I’m with my daughter, it’s healing a part of me that I didn’t know needed to be healed.”

Caley closed the interview with a memory from her senior year at PLNU. For their community health class, nursing students would do group sessions where they could open up and connect with one another. Although she was close with her fellow nursing students, she often assumed they wouldn’t be able to relate to her childhood situation. Caley explained she was jealous that they seemed effortlessly intelligent, attractive, happy, and well-adjusted.

“There’s a lot of people at Point Loma that don’t have that generational trauma, didn’t come from that crazy background… Their parents are healthy and nice,” She observed. “It’s interesting [feeling] like I was kind of thrown into a school where it felt like I was the only person from that colorful, broken background.”

However, when Caley opened up to the group, she was amazed at the support that they gave her. In fact, she realized that some of the students she had assumed were superficial had some of the warmest words of encouragement.

“This one girl I had judged all four years thinking she was shallow — which was so harsh of me to feel that way — at the end of the session when we were talking about my family, she said, ‘Stephanie, you’re the change generation.’”

That was the first time Caley had heard that term. That friend went on to explain that her own grandmother had grown up in unsafe circumstances and was determined that her children would have a happier, more stable upbringing.

“She told me, ‘I didn’t suffer through any of that, because my grandmother said no more. And that’s you. You’re going to be that person for your family.’ I’ll never forget that moment… I looked at her and hoped my kids would be [like her] someday.

“Point Loma changed my life forever. It helped me change my entire generational [legacy] and put me on a trajectory to have a healthy family and future — hopefully for the rest of the generations.”