AURORA | When she set out to find a nursing school, Jill Murphy went with a simple approach.
She cracked a copy of U.S. News and World Report’s nursing school rankings, found University of Colorado at No. 15 and decided it would be a good fit.
“I guess a not very scientific method,” she said with a laugh.
While she employed that simple approach to finding a nursing school, Murphy, 42, took a fairly unique route before that, emigrating from Ireland to the United States in 1994, joining the U.S. Army shortly thereafter and serving for 18 years, including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Her experiences have left Murphy with a passion for helping underserved populations and she said she hopes to work with those groups when she graduates in a few years.
Murphy grew up near Ireland’s southern coast in the town of Tramore.
As a child, Murphy said she had a much different outlook on health care and medicine than she does today.
“You didn’t go to the hospital unless you were dying,” she said.
In 1994, with Ireland’s economy floundering, Murphy immigrated to the United States with “two bags and $500.”
Not long after she arrived in the United States, Murphy joined the Army, serving as both a reservist and on active duty during her 18-year career.
During that stretch, Murphy also studied nursing, graduating from Johns Hopkins University before being deployed to Afghanistan in 2004.
Working with a civil affairs unit, Murphy said she was deployed to the Paktika province and some of the most remote regions imaginable.
The areas were so remote that maps weren’t always accurate. Sometimes, villages that were supposed to be there weren’t. Other times, areas that were supposed to be uninhabited had villages.
Today the area is home to a large military base, but when Murphy was there, troops were pacing out the layout for structures and just getting construction started.
“Then it was really the wild west,” she said.
The few structures around, in many cases, had been there for thousands of years, Murphy said, and the way of life had changed little in a few millennia.
She remembers seeing a man ride by on a donkey once, wearing traditional robes and thinking to herself that the area likely looked exactly the same around the time of Jesus Christ.
“Then a Toyota truck went by,” she said with a grin.
While she was assigned to a civil affairs unit and not a medical unit, Murphy said she still got the chance to use her medical background some, participating in some vaccine programs and other efforts to help the impoverished people in the region.
“Those are some rural and underserved populations for you,” she said.
Her Afghanistan experience stuck with her and Murphy said she’d like to go back there to help again when she’s done with school where she’s studying to be a nurse practitioner.
“I’d like to give something back,” she said.
According to the United Nations, the country has one of the worst mortality rates in the world for people under five years old. By several indicators, it is one of the most difficult places in the world for women, particularly young women. But those bleak factors make the country intriguing, Murphy said, because in the face of all that, many people there still have a sort of pioneer-like resiliency.
“There’s almost nothing they can’t fix with a piece of string and whatever they find around,” she said.
It’s also a place where aid can go a long way because the country’s troubles are so acute, she said.
“It has the potential to be moved forward because it’s so far behind,” she said.
Reach reporter Brandon Johansson at 720-449-9040 or bjohansson@aurorasentinel.com