Educating future nurses

In fact, the University of Arizona College of Nursing graduate was so determined to bring comfort to other people that she inspired her loved ones to continue where she left off.

Enter Campaign Candace, a fund-raising drive for the Patient Care Learning Center at the College of Nursing.

"Candace wanted so badly to be a nurse and to give back, since she had been taken care of by nurses all of her life," said Sharon Termini, Brock's mother. "She knew what it was like from both sides of the bed — as the patient and the nurse."

After a lifelong battle with cystic fibrosis, Brock died on Oct. 25, 2004. She was 26.

Termini said her daughter refused to be defined by the disease. The Canyon del Oro High School graduate loved shopping, her Mustang convertible and the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. She was a member of the Tucson Baptist Temple, where she taught Sunday school, and she loved to help the needy in any way she could.

"She always had this desire and drive, and was the strongest little girl," Termini said. "She just wanted to be like everyone else and didn't want anyone to know she had cystic fibrosis. She didn't dwell on that and didn't want anyone ever being sorry for her."

After attending Pima Community College, Brock was accepted into the UA College of Nursing.

"She was always wearing red and blue and buying Wildcat stuff. She was just elated," Termini said.

Despite health setbacks, Brock stuck with her studies. She took tests and wrote papers from her hospital bed.

"You just couldn't keep her down; she kept believing," Termini said. "No one knows what she went through at home. I would see her go into the bathroom and cough up blood and go on the breathing machine and then hook up to oxygen and sit at the computer and work."

Brock's perseverance paid off: After eight years, she received her bachelor of science degree May 2004 and was offered a nursing job on the pediatric floor at University Medical Center, where she had spent so much time as a patient. Five months later, she contracted methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus and was unable to recover.

Though Termini wishes that Brock could have had more time to enjoy the work for which she prepared for so long, she said Campaign Candace emerged as a fitting legacy after discussions with Judith Brown, the director of development and community affairs at the College of Nursing.

Campaign Candace donations will help fund the Patient Care Learning Center, Brown said, including the purchase of another Sim Man, a computer-controlled mannequin used as a hands-on learning tool. The Sim Man breathes and has a pulse and blood pressure, as well as lung, heart and bowel sounds. Students can insert tubes into the Sim Man, start IVs and practice catheterizations, injections and many other procedures.

"It is very high-tech," Brown said. "The purpose is to have students not only learn, but hone those skills so well that when they go onto hospital wards to do rotations, they know everything perfectly. Before they start working on people at clinics or hospitals, they have practiced over and over again."

Brown thinks Brock would have appreciated the fact that she is helping every nursing student become a better nurse.

"All of the student nurses going through the training that Candace devoted her heart and soul to would be training in the room with the Sim Man," she said.

Campaign Candace is one portion of a $1.4 million capital campaign under way at the College of Nursing to enlarge the Patient Care Learning Center. The college needs space to accommodate twice the current number of students in response to a critical statewide shortage of nurses.

Cindy Murphy, Brock's best friend of 14 years and vice chairwoman of Campaign Candace, thinks Brock would have been be gratified to know that her friends and family have come together to honor her beloved profession.

"Candace loved nursing, and she wanted to give back. That was her whole goal," Murphy said. "She grew up in hospitals and knew everything about them, and she had such a heart for children and sick people and could relate to them on such a level that many people could not. . . . I can't give back enough to honor her."

Profile: Campaign Candace

If you would like more information about Campaign Candace and the Campaign Candace Car Show set for spring, go to www.campaigncandace.com/ or call Sharon Termini at 325-4544. Tax-deductible contributions designated for the University of Arizona Foundation Campaign Candace can be sent to College of Nursing Development Office; University of Arizona; P.O. Box 210203; Tucson, AZ 85721-0203