By Cara Ramer, Special to the Tribune

As a child, Taylor DeYoung sat in Mayo Clinic hospital rooms watching nurses care for her mother during cancer treatment. This summer, she will return to the same hospital as a nursing intern, preparing to offer that same kind of care to other families.

The internship is a full-circle step for DeYoung, whose calling to nursing was shaped not only by what she saw at the Mayo Clinic but by the compassion her family experienced during some of their hardest moments.

DeYoung’s mother was diagnosed with aggressive stage three breast cancer in 2012. Soon after, she began receiving treatment at Mayo Clinic – one of the closest major breast cancer research centers to their Illinois home.

“Because of the Mayo Clinic, my mom is alive today. There aren’t many hospitals that could have done what they did for her,” said DeYoung.

For DeYoung, the internship opportunity is deeply personal.

“I don’t just see the internship as a great opportunity,” she said. “I see it as a chance to serve in the place that changed my family’s story.”

DeYoung’s choice to pursue nursing was not immediate. Though she initially considered a career in education, her family’s repeated hospital experiences exposed her to the role nurses play in a wide range of medical settings.

“My brother was an active child, and he’s had everything from snowboarding accidents to hiking injuries,” said DeYoung. “Between his ER visits and my mom’s cancer treatments, I got to see a lot of different areas of nursing up close.”

Through those experiences, DeYoung noticed the unique role nurses play in both medical care and emotional support.

“I started to see how nurses were there for both the medical side and the emotional side, and that really drew me in,” she said. “The more I learned about nursing, the more I realized this was what I wanted – to care for people in some of their hardest moments.”

While she considered oncology, DeYoung ultimately pursued emergency and trauma nursing after earning her EMT license during her freshman year at Cedarville University. As a daughter of a cancer patient, her experiences clearly shaped how she approaches care not just for patients but for their families.

“I remember waking up in my mom’s hospital room after one of her surgeries and finding stuffed animals the nurses had left for my brother and me,” said DeYoung. “We were little and scared, and that simple act made such a difference. Those are the kinds of moments I want to create for families now.”

Because of those experiences, DeYoung is committed to caring for the whole family, not just the patient.

“As a nurse, I don’t just think about my patient. I think about their parents, siblings and grandparents,” she said. “I’m always asking, ‘How can I support this whole family?'”

For DeYoung, the opportunity to intern at Mayo Clinic is not just about where she’s going but why. This summer, she will return to the place where she once watched nurses care for her family, now ready to care for others in some of their hardest moments.