Region: Latin America and Caribbean

Fausto Armando Duarte Rios made two promises—the first to himself, the second to his mother. Both of these promises inspired him to be who he is today.

When his grandmother suddenly fell ill and he couldn’t do anything to help her in her last moments, Fausto was inspired to choose a profession dedicated to patient care.

“I promised myself that as long as I was caring for a sick person, I would not only do so with professionalism, but also with emotional support and empathy towards the patient’s family as well,” he said.

His second promise, to his mother, was that he would be an example for his brothers and sisters to help them all achieve their goals.

Throughout his education, Fausto realized something he had to do to fulfill those promises—he had to become a change agent to make the nursing profession visible and generate impact at all levels.

“I realized that in the hospital, I could make a positive difference for some patients, but by caring and advocating for necessary changes that improve public health and health policies, it could benefit not only thousands of more patients, but also employment and working conditions of the health professionals,” he said.

To help achieve this mission, Fausto participated in the second cohort of the Nursing Now Challenge (formerly the Nightingale Challenge) through Sigma. This initiative was created as a leadership development opportunity and works to form networks of young health professionals across the world.

“[The Nursing Now Challenge] opened the doors to another level of leadership experience,” Fausto said. “I had the opportunity to meet great young leaders in the nursing world and also gained the confidence to go out of my comfort zone.”

As part of the Nursing Now Challenge, Fausto is also a member of the Challengers Committee—a team dedicated to identifying innovative ways to support nurses and midwives in their roles as health leaders, professionals, and advocates, and to demonstrate that nursing and midwifery are exciting and rewarding careers to improve health recruitment and retention on a global scale.

Fausto said that great agents of change have emerged from the Nursing Now Challenge, and he hopes to do his part to improve nursing visibility and have a positive impact on the profession. Thanks to the skills he obtained from the challenge and his mentors, Fausto has secured a new position working in the United States at El Centro Regional Medical Center.

As Fausto continues to develop himself as a leader—an agent for change—and works to fulfill the promises that started it all, he’s grateful for the opportunity he’s had to learn from other young leaders around the world. His commitment to the Nursing Now initiative remains.

“My wish is to see nursing as a valued and respected profession around the world,” he said “We are a legacy of great nurses; it is now up to us, the youth, to protect nursing around the world. One world, one nursing.”

Fausto Armando Duarte Rios, BS, graduated in 2020 from the Autonomous University of Baja California in Mexicali, Mexico. He is preparing for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exam and hopes to soon apply for the NCLEX. Fausto belongs to the Tau Alpha Chapter of Sigma.

Sigma member Juliana Marquezi Pereira, BSN, RN, says she found her career path by chance. She always thought she wanted to be a diplomat, so she studied politics, international law, and languages. But the need to take care of people close to her made her think how much she could help them and make a difference in everyone's life.

After three years studying history and geography at a public college, Juliana realized she needed a change. After passing the vestibular for nursing—an exam necessary to get into a college or university in Brazil—she started her bachelor's degree in 2007 and graduated in 2011.

But then her godmother needed an oncological treatment that they didn't have in their rural city in the State of São Paulo, so Juliana’s family moved to São Paulo City. At the same time, she read a report in a newspaper about upcoming intestinal and multivisceral transplants in Brazil that sparked her interest. She researched and found a multidisciplinary specialization in donation, harvesting, and transplantation of organs and tissues at one of the hospitals qualified to perform that type of transplant. While working on her year of specialization, Juliana was awarded a scholarship and started as an intern at the organ transplant ward at Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in São Paulo which soon led to a full-time job.

Four years after, Juliana was invited to become the Leader of Coordinators and Nursing Liver and Digestive Organs Transplantation, the first liver transplant group in Brazil. It’s the group’s responsibility to plan, manage, monitor, and guide all patients who are enrolled on a liver, pancreas, intestine, and multivisceral transplant list. In addition, they conduct the transplant logistics when there is a donor—confirming data at the Transplant Center and from the donor and recipient surgery along with summoning the patient and the entire team that will work on the surgery.

Working in the largest Brazilian public hospital complex, Juliana is often exposed to new discoveries and rare and difficult cases, which has inspired her to study and research more to improve outcomes for her patients. Recently, her transplant team performed the first uterus transplant in Latin America. The recipient went on to give birth to the first baby ever carried by a uterus transplanted from a deceased donor!