Roland Tuquero

Roland Tuquero, MSN, CRNA is the recipient of the NEF Georgette Viellion Scholarship. This scholarship is awarded to an exceptional doctoral applicant who is a nurse educator/leader with career plans to develop expertise in teaching while incorporating a service orientation for educating future nurse leaders.

He received his undergraduate in nursing (BSN) from the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada in 1996 and his Master’s in Nursing (MSN) with a concentration in nurse anesthesia from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia in 2002. He is currently enrolled in the post-Master’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) part-time at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan with plans to graduate in the spring of 2025.

Roland’s nursing career has spanned 28 years and has included numerous dynamic experiences. He began his nursing career in San Diego, California at Kaiser Permanente as a medical-surgical nurse and then the University of California San Diego Medical Center as an RN in the cardiovascular, neuro and trauma ICUs and the cardiac catheterization lab. He traveled as an RN working in cardiac catheterization lab in San Francisco and Orange County, California prior to enrolling in nurse anesthesia school at Old Dominion University.

Following his graduation from Old Dominion University, Roland continued to gain valuable experience as a CRNA at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Kaiser Permanente Hospital in San Diego, Botsford Hospital in Farmington Hills, MI and has been currently a staff CRNA at the VA Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan for nearly 10 years.

He credits his mother, Presentacion, a retired nurse and midwife, from USC Hospital in Los Angeles, California with 50 years of experience herself for motivating him to pursue a career in nursing and nurse anesthesia.

Throughout his career, Roland has been passionate and enthusiastic about educating student nurse anesthetists from various programs including the University of Southern California- Kaiser Permanente, United States Navy-Balboa Hospital, Wayne State University, Oakland University and Michigan State University. He is currently involved with clinically teaching student nurse anesthetists from the University of Michigan-Flint at the VA Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

He chose Michigan State University to pursue his post-Masters DNP because of the support from his faculty advisor, mentor, colleague, and nurse anesthesia program director, Dr. Gayle Lourens.

Dr. Lourens encouraged him to further research and pursue his passion for simulation education particularly as it relates to transesophageal echocardiogram learning and cardiac anesthesia. His future goal after completing his DNP is to become a professor and join the faculty in the nurse anesthesia program at Michigan State University.

Roland is extremely honored and humbled to be the recipient of the NEF Georgette Viellion Scholarship. He believes that leadership begets more leaders. To become an exceptional nurse leader means that “the greatest among you has to be the servant of all.” The quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson has summarized his career path and life philosophy, “Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”