The real Doogie Kamealoha: This 16-year-old nursing grad is focused on better patient care

Elliana Tenenbaum got her first doctor's kit when she was 4.

The bright-blue Fisher Price bag contained smaller, plastic versions of the tools she saw her father, a medical doctor, use every day. With her kit in hand, Elliana shadowed him as he saw his patients at their homes and at his office in Thousand Oaks, California. She soaked up knowledge as they described their health concerns and ailments.

"She really geeked out with her dad over everything medical," said her mother, Maya Tenenbaum, who purchased the kit for Elliana.

Just a few months later, Elliana administered her first shot. Her father served as her patient.

At 8 years old, she started reading ultrasounds.

"That became a new, fun skill that I got to try," Elliana said.

And on Aug. 10, Elliana, now 16, became the youngest person to graduate with a nursing degree from Arizona State University.

Armed with a real stethoscope, she is now preparing to take the National Council Licensure Examination, which recently graduated nursing students must pass to receive a nursing license. After that, she hopes to begin working full-time in an emergency room.

She's been applying for positions across the country, she said. Once hired, she'll approach her new job with a focus on bedside care and developing relationships with her patients through conversations similar to the ones she saw her father have over the course of her childhood.

"From a very young age, I've had a passion for patient care," she told The Arizona Republic. "I think seeing how much time he spends getting to know his patients and hearing their stories inspired me."

Color-coded charts and Zoom: Keys to an accelerated education

Getting a college degree as a teenager, it turns out, isn't easy.

To graduate so young, Elliana said she had to speed through her high school courses at El Camino High School at Ventura College in her hometown of Ventura, where she was able to obtain her high school diploma while earning college credit. She also took community college classes at Moorpark and Rio Salado colleges, gaining credit for many lower-level prerequisite courses before she graduated high school.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of her classes were taught online, which she said helped with the workload.

"When you take transportation out of the picture of how much time you spend in school, I had a lot more time to dedicate toward learning," Elliana said. "That helped me accelerate."

Still, fast-tracking her degrees required extensive planning. Maya said Elliana had a color-coded grid that she hung on one of the walls in her childhood bedroom. It showed all of the classes she needed to graduate and when she needed to take them.

"This was very much her plan and her goal," Maya said. "This was not something that my husband and I ever laid out for her or pushed her to do. So, it's very gratifying to see your child use their potential, and more than that, for Elliana to see her want to use her skills and talents to do good in the world. Nothing could make me prouder."

Elliana said she chose the 16-month accelerated nursing program at ASU’s Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation because the school promised plenty of clinical experience in such a short period of time. She spent her time in the program rotating between a variety of specialties, working shifts at Valley hospitals.

Judith Karshmer, dean of ASU's Edson School of Nursing, said Elliana's journey in the nursing program characterizes the university's charter.

"With our commitment to inclusivity, we are able to provide the environment for our learners to be successful," she said. "Elliana will be a great nurse and we are pleased that she is now an Edson graduate."

Elliana is not finished with her education, either. She said she wants to gain hands-on experience by working as a nurse for a while, but eventually hopes to return to school to attain a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree, a doctorate-level credential.

'Dignified care': A focus on uplifting patients

Elliana said she pursued nursing because she wanted to spend time with her patients.

"You have the opportunity to speak with them, ask them questions about their lives or what they feel uncomfortable with," she said.

But she's painfully aware that her focus on bedside care isn't always standard across health care.

"A lot of doctors, or sometimes even nurses that I've seen, they will just get their job done and leave the room," she said. "They don't really take that much time to value their patients."

Maya said Elliana once called home after a long day getting clinical experience at a hospital. She had overheard a nurse speak poorly of a patient during her shift. Elliana rarely called home upset, Maya said, but that day, she was in tears.

"Her hardest day is probably my proudest moment as a parent," Maya said. "That her most distraught moment in nursing school was about character and about ethics, was actually a really proud moment for me."

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Elliana herself was put on bed rest at 12 years old because of a spinal injury, and Maya said she believes that experience contributed to her daughter's compassion.

"She was on the patient side of things," Maya said. "When she had nurses that emphasized that she was a whole person who had a life outside of those circumstances, I think she really respected the profession so much."

As Elliana prepares to begin nursing, she said she hopes to bring a "unique" focus on bedside care into an emergency room setting.

"Of course, you're going to have lots of people rotating through your emergency department," she said. "But I want to be someone who also spends the time to get to know their stories and why they are there, and to give them dignified care during a vulnerable time in their lives."

Sasha Hupka covers higher education for The Arizona Republic. Do you have a tip on Arizona's universities, community colleges or trade schools? Reach her at sasha.hupka@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @SashaHupka. Follow her on Instagram or Threads: @sashahupkasnaps.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Move over, Doogie Kamealoha: Meet ASU's 16-year-old nursing grad