HHS alumni Anna Holland gives advice to students Ursuline a career in the medical field.
By Samantha Simmons
When HHS alumni Anna Byrd Holland was a child, she always wanted to fix her siblings and friend’s boo-boos. She watched her mother, a nurse, work in the healthcare field and wanted to be just like her: helping other people with hospitality, grace, and poise. So, after graduating from high school, she did just that. Since then, she has been an ICU nurse and is now a Nurse Practitioner.
Holland reminisces on the feeling of standing in the student section at J.P. Cain during her highschool years, remembering the buzzing feeling of being a Hartselle Tiger under Friday night lights. Holland played three different sports in her four years of attending Hartselle High School, basketball, volleyball, and softball. She shined as a scholar and student athlete within HHS’s halls. As a successful student Holland advises current students to have fun, but “buckle down and study” when you need to most. She says students looking to go into the medical field must understand how to balance work and life, as human life hangs in the balance of your decisions.
After graduating from HHS, Holland attended the University of Alabama and received her bachelor’s degree and then attended the University of South Alabama for her master’s degree.
As an ICU nurse, she understood just how important her job was. She had just started her shift and her patient coded. She said she hit the code blue button, hopped on the bed despite being short, and started chest compressions. She said, “Tons of doctors and nurses started pouring into the room and we intubated him and another nurse pushed meds while another nurse hooked him up to the defibrillator while another nurse was writing everything we were doing. The patient lived but was very sick and fragile. By the end of my shift, I was managing his ventilator, 3 IV vasopressor drips to help sustain his BP, and one IV drip to keep him sedated. I was also giving him blood transfusions during all of this. But the whole picture of that room was beautiful… organized chaos… because we helped save a life.”
Now, Holland helps people of all ages get to stable health. As a nurse practitioner, Holland sees patients from newborns to grandparents in her office, ensuring new challenges every day. Holland asks details about patients and takes various measures to ensure health success by performing a physical exam. With her job, there is never a dull moment, as each patient is different in need and health.
Today, students who desire a career like Holland’s can enroll in the HHS Medical Academy. strives to provide students with the tools to succeed in their chosen medical field, in the hopes that students get to live out their dream career as Holland gets to every day.
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