Nurse Taught Students to Be Good Health Care Professionals – and Good Human Beings

When Karen Meister was weighing whether to become a nurse or a teacher, she flipped a coin - then went off to nursing school.

As it turned out, she came full circle in a career that ended in the classroom.

For the past 18 years, Karen Meister poured her nursing experience, grit and heart into teaching health assisting at Shawsheen Valley Regional Vocational Technical School, which is tightly connected to SkillsUSA Massachusetts. The payoff wasn’t medals or résumés. Instead, it was the moment a student truly got it.

“That aha moment. That was my victory as well,” she said. “I knew where they were before, and I knew where they are now, and I knew how working together, we got it done.”

Meister’s path to the classroom began at the bedside. She started as a CNA in high school and college, then moved into nursing after graduation, rotating through medical-surgical, ER, ICU and oncology at a small community hospital (the same one where she was born) in Arlington. “I really was able to get a good taste of nursing at its best,” she said, noting that close collaboration with physicians and autonomy sharpened her clinical judgment. 

When an illness prompted her to move out of acute care, Meister found herself handling disability claims for Fortune 500 companies, rising from case manager to project manager, and later telecommuting. Her team was across the country in Oregon.

Then a chance conversation with then Shawsheen Superintendent Charlie Lyons changed everything. “He said, ‘You ever thought about teaching?’… The next thing I knew,” she said, “I had a raise, and I couldn’t pass it up.”

 The shop: skills, judgment and the whole patient

Meister’s program prepared students for entry-level roles and the state Certified Nurse Aide exam by junior year. Beyond long-term care skills, she taught advanced competencies that opened doors in acute settings – EKGs, phlebotomy, specimen collection and vital signs – plus CPR/First Aid, medical terminology and disease pathology. She also dove into the legal and ethical landscape of care today.

But the throughline was holistic, human-centered practice. “I tried to instill… that the patient is not just their diagnosis. They are somebody’s mother, father, husband, wife, sister, brother,” she said. Her favorite teaching prompt: “I want you to visualize that person in the bed as being the person in your life that you love the most. And then I want you to care for that patient the way you would care for your loved one.”

She taught professional and personal skills in tandem: confidentiality, boundaries, teamwork, confidence, grit, perseverance, collaboration. “I’m not here just to teach them how to take a blood pressure,” she said. “I’m teaching them how to be good health care professionals and good human beings, and the best way to do that is to model.”

But the first semester almost sent her back to the desk job. “I had my letter of resignation written in November of my first year,” she admitted. A real lockdown due to a potential community threat (“from 9:15 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon”) and the shock of navigating complex student realities left her questioning the move – while she was simultaneously studying for licensure exams, earning teaching credentials and mastering pedagogy. A veteran mentor stepped in to help her break tasks down to day-by-day wins.

By year’s end, everything clicked. “I felt empowered. I really did. I felt like I was meant for this,” Meister said. “Now I have the tools on how to manage a classroom, write curriculum and assess students. I started looking at it like I’m with these kids, sometimes more than their own parents are.”

 SkillsUSA offers a proving ground

Under Meister and colleagues, students competed in nurse assisting, medical terminology and basic health care, along with the Health Knowledge Bowl, with national medalists across multiple events. She kept the competition in perspective for her students. 

“The career is the bigger goal,” she said. “The knowledge they gain and the experience they have in clinical and in co-op prepares them for the challenges of SkillsUSA.”

The real preparation was attitude and identity. “The day of [competition], they’re all business. ‘This is what I earned. This is what I worked hard for,’” she said. Inside the shop, Meister made sure students learned how to show up for patients, for their teams and for themselves: “At the end of the day, you can look in the mirror and say, ‘I did a good job for my patients today… for my nurse manager today… for me today.’”

Like every health educator, Meister had to reinvent hands-on learning during COVID. “I went to school, and I would make up little goody bags for supplies, put them outside the door, and the kids would come and pick them up,” she said. “Then we would meet on Teams… I had kids practicing CPR and first aid on their pets and parents,” she added with a smile.

During that time, students had the option to continue their co-op assignments, and their courage in that moment left a mark. “They got COVID from working in the nursing homes,” she said. Isolation was brutal – students “would cry because they didn’t have any human connection” – yet many refused to quit. “It was a testament to the types of students who are drawn to our shop, who have that hard wiring to do that kind of a job in the face of that kind of danger.”

 The quiet pride of a teacher

Most of Meister’s graduates pursued nursing; others found their way to physical and occupational therapy, sports medicine or the veterinary field. A few became physicians. Some left health care and later returned. She sees career and technical education as a pragmatic onramp to purpose.

Her own family embodies the promise of CTE, although her children competed in SkillsUSA programs at a rival high school: one daughter, a dual national medalist, became executive pastry chef at a Boston hotel; the other, who went on to become valedictorian, is now an associate director at a biotech company. Meister’s takeaway is simple and expansive: Hands do the skill, but values shape the professional.

Upon her retirement this spring, Meister received SkillsUSA Massachusetts’ highest honor. During the 2025 State Leadership and Skills Conference, she was named an Honorary Life Member.

And Meister might pause her retirement and return as a substitute teacher this winter while a colleague is on leave. The timing lines up with competition season, and she’s eager to support the next cohort. “I want our success to continue,” she said. “You want to make sure you get that right, so the kids feel like they earned that spot.”

 Travel and grandkids are also on the horizon. But the classroom’s imprint is indelible. “I’m not here just to teach a skill,” she reminded herself and her students for 18 years. “If you’re teaching correctly, confidence, grit and collaboration just come naturally.”