At 17, Sigrid Barrett made a deal with her father. He told her, “Try nursing school for one semester, and if you hate it that much, you can transfer.”
They shook hands and promised she’d give it her best. “I can do anything for a semester,” Barrett figured.
She was accepted into the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, the country's top nursing school at the time.
One semester in, she found she loved it.
“And I still love it,” she said. “I still love everything that I get to do as a nurse. I've done all kinds of cool, amazing things as a nurse.”
Barrett was born and raised in the Philippines in a small town called Iloilo. She comes from a family of health practitioners. Her mother was a physician and ran a clinic in their hometown attached to their house. She tended to all injuries and ailments at all hours of the day. Practicing in a rural town, her mother was often paid for her services with eggs, live chickens, and bags of rice.
“We weren’t rich, but we had food on the table,” Barrett recalled. “To me, this was health care — looking out for each other and for all community members.”
Barrett was 15 when she and her family immigrated to the United States. They settled in New Jersey and began a new life in a new country and a new climate from the ground up. She received a rigorous education in the Philippines and graduated from high school early.
Not long after immigrating to the U.S., she moved to Philadelphia to begin college. Barrett knew she could not afford to fail, so she pushed herself to thrive and succeed through nursing school. In her final year there, she worked four different jobs, including at the local gym, so she could have more time to study and work out at the same time.
In 1993, she graduated with her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and later returned to school to become a pediatric nurse practitioner and a clinical nurse specialist. “My heart is with the little patients,” she said.
She worked in home health care and as a travel nurse, but soon realized she belonged in academia. Barrett became a full-time faculty member at the University of Central Florida College of Nursing as she pursued a Ph.D.
“One of the things that one of my mentors told me is not to be afraid to dream big,” Barrett said. “She was the first to tell me that she saw me as a future dean, and I laughed her off and said, ‘That's never going to happen.’”
She credits her mentors in seeing her beyond where she was in life. They helped pave the way to success for her, encouraging and challenging her along the way. Oftentimes, nurses are seen as offering only bedside care in hospitals, but those days are long gone.
“There are so many avenues to pursue in nursing. I encourage all of our future nurse leaders to explore them. A nurse can take on so many amazing roles,” Barrett said. “Dream big, work hard, and you will see results you will be proud of.”
While Barrett’s mother was a physician growing up, she also comes from a long line of nurses through her aunts, siblings, and cousins.
Yet, nursing wasn’t her first choice.
It may not have been her second choice either had her father not struck that deal with her a few years after they moved to the US. She almost went a different route.
“Originally, I wanted to pursue journalism. I loved to write,” she said.
To her surprise, nursing offered another way to share her voice, her words, and to make a difference in the world of health care. It even brought her back to her roots.
“The Philippine Nurse Association of America (PNAA) was my professional home for many years, and I sought them out,” Barrett said. “Even though I was educated with my nursing degrees here in the U.S., I needed to find a connection back to my people, my kababayan.”
Barrett has been a proud member of PNAA for nearly 20 years. She first joined the Central Florida chapter and served in many capacities, including on the board of directors and co-chair of the Education Committee. When she was offered the opportunity to work at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing, Barrett helped establish the Alabama chapter. She was a founding member and the second president, completing her term in 2023.
“We were able to make incredible gains in setting us up as a voice for Filipino-American nurses in Alabama,” she said. “There were many initiatives that I launched, implemented and evaluated with my team.”
At the national level, she served as the PNAA research chair for many years, but stepped down as a co-chair to serve as a mentor to the current chair.
Barrett is the third dean and the first Filipino-American dean for the 51ԹϺ School of Nursing.
“I'm absolutely proud to be at the table as a minority, to change the narrative and break some glass ceilings,” Barrett said. “We often don’t see minoritized groups who are at the level of a dean or associate dean, especially in nursing schools. It's my responsibility to explore this opportunity, and I'm so thrilled that 51ԹϺ gave me this chance."
