Hartford Student Lands Prestigious Scholarship

Information via University of St. Joseph

HARTFORD, CT — The CVS Health Foundation has awarded $3,000 in Family Nurse Practitioner & Physician Assistant (FNP/PA) Scholarships to three University of Saint Joseph students in the University’s Family Nurse Practitioner Program.

The CVS Health Foundation Scholarships support the most promising family nurse practitioners and physician assistants of tomorrow from accredited Colleges of Nursing and Physician Assistants schools across the country.

The scholarships seek to help mitigate the impact of the ongoing primary care physician shortage in the United States. With more Americans living longer and fewer primary care physicians, the demand for highly skilled nurse practitioners and physician assistants is only expected to increase.

Soralid Heredia, RN, BSN of Hartford is one of the three recipients of the scholarship. Soralid is enrolled full-time in University of Saint Joseph’s Family Nurse Practitioner Program.

Soralid is fluent in both English and Spanish. In 2018 she was a part of Medical Aid to Haiti (MATH), a GYN/surgery mission trip, where she traveled to the underserved area of Dame Marie and organized free surgeries. She scrubbed in the Operating Rooms and worked with surgeons as a labor and delivery nurse.

She is currently enrolled in her fourth semester in the Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) program at University of Saint Joseph. She is an honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Air Force, having served five years active duty from 2001-2006 as a medic.

With the continued assistance of faculty member Heidi Smolka, DNP, FNP-BC, Graduate FNP Director, and Assistant Professor of Nursing, University of Saint Joseph students have been selected based on their good standing at the University along with other conditions promoted by CVS Health.

“We are very fortunate at USJ to have a diverse and clinically talented cohort of graduate FNP nursing students who have already made significant contributions to the nursing profession with their work as registered nurses,” stated Smolka. “Soralid has demonstrated a commitment to aiding medically underserved populations and I am very proud to know and work with her as she advances her career to serving as a Family Nurse Practitioner.”