Former U.S. Navy nurse completes Cooper Medical School

While working in the U.S. Naval Hospital in Guam, at the height of the Afghanistan War, Katie Fenton Nowlan made a pact with a fellow emergency medicine nurse. After leaving the military, the two vowed, they would go to medical school and become doctors. 

A decade later, Nowlan is heading back to a hospital emergency department with the letters, M.D., behind her name. 

The 37-year-old Massachusetts native is graduating from Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, armed with a service background that includes Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton in California, deployments to Kuwait, medical missions to Iraq and Germany, and two years at the busy Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

Nowlan will continue her medical training as a resident at Cooper University Health Care in Camden, N.J., her top choice. 

“I do like the adrenaline,” said Nowlan, who obtained her nursing degree with a competitive Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania, and post-bachelor’s training at the University of California, Berkeley. “I need stress to get stuff done.” 

As a CMSRU freshman, Nowlan co-founded Veterans Outreach and Interest, CMSRU Element (VOICE), a service-learning program that provides outreach to homeless veterans in Camden and educates civilian medical students about the special population’s medical needs. 

The program offers health literacy classes to veterans at a Volunteers of America-run shelter called Home for the Brave. As a fellow veteran and the daughter of a Vietnam veteran, Nowlan formed instant bonds with the men there. 

She recalled running into one of her clients as he gave staff a hard time in Cooper’s emergency department. Once he recognized Nowlan, his attitude adjusted and he calmed down.  

“A difficult patient became the most appreciative person,” Nowlan recalled. “It just made me feel like I was making a little bit of an impact.”  

Her service learning work was “extraordinary” and helped her medical school earn the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Spencer Foreman Award for Outstanding Community Engagement, said CMSRU Dean Annette Reboli.

At the school's May 14 virtual commencement, Nowlan received the Ambulatory Clerkship Award for outstanding service to the Cooper Rowan Clinic, and the Dean's Award for Humanism, given to a graduate who best exemplifies humanistic values. 

“CMSRU is a learning community where students learn not only from faculty, but also from each other,” Reboli said. “Katie is the consummate professional. I’m delighted that she will be a resident at our clinical affiliate, Cooper University Health Care, where she will be teaching our next group of students.” 

Nowlan is using her last few weeks of medical school volunteering for Criticall Connections, a program to assist Cooper University Hospital with communication to hospitalized patients' families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Soon, she will step back into a hospital emergency department in the midst of war, this time against an unseen viral enemy. 

Nowlan said she’s ready to help. 

“It is a little bit scary to think about, but then you think about the people who are already in there doing the work every single day,” Nowlan said. “The leadership is awesome. I trust them implicitly with making the right decisions for the staff safety and the PPE issues.

“I also think, when you’re starting a really hard program and it’s already hard, you can do anything after that.”