How a St. Edward's University graduate hopes to find cure for sister's condition

For more than 20 years, Haley Ruiz has known how she wants to make her mark in the world.

“Science has been, like, the biggest thing in my life since I was 4,” she said. “Understanding how things work and what they do and why they do what they do just kind of steered my route.”

The 25-year-old, who grew up in Texas, transferred to St. Edward’s University for a bachelor's degree in biology, all while working as a full-time pediatric nurse. Her dream is to become a neurosurgeon — and that dream is personal.

Ruiz's younger sister, Saira, was diagnosed as an infant with craniosynostosis, a birth defect that causes the fibrous joints in the brain to close before the brain is fully grown. At around 18 months old, Saira underwent her first major surgery. Ruiz remembers the doctor's appointments, the surgery and caring for her sister.

“There is no cure or no specific treatment plan for craniosynostosis. So I decided at 8 years old, I was going to be a pediatric surgeon, I was going to find the cure for craniosynostosis, I was going to make the best treatment plan,” she said. “And nobody would have to ever go through what we went through again.”

Ruiz started college when she was 14. As a first-generation student, she said she wanted to attend college to show her sisters that their goals are possible. Her mother, she said, played a big role in making it possible for her to attend early. At 18, she graduated with her nursing degree from Victoria College.

“It was just very exciting, very nerve-wracking, but also very eye-opening at the same time,” Ruiz said.

After taking a year off to travel, she became a full-time nurse in 2019 and worked briefly in hospitals before becoming a private pediatric nurse to help children who receive terminal diagnoses at their homes. Though the care can be emotional, she said it is fulfilling to make one-on-one connections with children and know she’s making a difference in their lives.

“I just really loved it, because it's really rewarding for me,” she said. “When you’re with them, you get to bring all of the happiness that they might not get to have in their life.”

Ruiz chose to continue her education at St. Edward’s because of the high percentage of female professors in the science department, she said.

“I felt like they could help me pursue the things I wanted to do without feeling the push and shove of ‘No, you're not able to do it,’ ” she said.

Ruiz was also excited to try her hand at other courses outside of her major. She took psychology classes to understand children’s ability to process serious illnesses as well as art classes.

Ruiz said this graduation in particular is very emotional for her. She cared for several of her grandparents at the end of their lives, and this is the first graduation they didn't attend.

“I have always been a caregiver in my family,” she said. “This one is really, really different and really important because I have the few family members that I have left, everybody’s taking the time to make sure that they're going to make it, and it's kind of just turned into this ginormous celebration.”

Ruiz graduated from St Edward’s on Dec. 15. Her three sisters, parents, aunts, uncle and other grandparents attended.

Her family and her sisters, she said, “are everything to me.” Two days before her graduation, she drove four hours to see one sister’s choir concert and the other’s soccer game in the morning.

Ruiz plans to take the Medical College Admission Test and pursue a master's degree. Her goal has evolved to become not only a neurosurgeon, but a pediatric neonatal neurosurgeon — a specialty involving operations on infants still in the womb or shortly after birth. After that, she’d like to become chief of surgery at a hospital.

Ruiz said she is driven toward this work to help families know they are not alone.

“You are taking on the burden that these families are having to go through and guiding them through it,” she said. “Having nurses, surgeons and regular practicing physicians have that mindset that they are here to help and that they're here to take on some of this burden so these families aren't doing it alone is really, really important.”

Ruiz said her advice for first-generation college students is to embrace their dreams and goals.

“I always want to tell people, like don't be afraid. Don't be scared, just go out there and do it,” she said. “If there's a career you want to do, if there's a goal you have in life, you can do it no matter what anybody says.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: St. Edward's graduate in Austin in pursuit of sister's medical cure