Ashley Owens lost her mother to a deadly glioblastoma brain tumor in 2014. This terrible loss led her to support the mission of the Southeastern Brain Tumor Foundation (SBTF), headed by her mother’s physician Dr. Constantinos G. “Costas” Hadjipanayis. In June 2019, Owens received the foundation’s inaugural Voices of Hope Scholarship to help her finish her education.
A non-traditional second-year respiratory therapy student, Owens juggles her coursework as well as that of her two children, a 4th and 5th grader. She has to stay focused.
“It’s a challenge to balance my time between their school and mine,” Owens said. However, the example she sets for her children is tremendous. “They see how hard I work and see I’m doing well.” Owens is an A/B student.
Healthcare has always held Owens’ interest. Initially, she attended Georgia College and State University as a pre-physician assistant major but found the path to that career daunting and lengthy. She left school to consider her options and had a family along the way.
When Owens returned to school, she pursued a degree in an ultrasound technician program but was drawn to Georgia State’s RT program when she learned she could complete a bachelor’s degree in only five semesters. Owens had most of her bachelor’s pre-requisites from her previous college experience.
Now a senior, Owens considers her RT specialty options. She completed rotations in emergency and intensive care and loved the experience. She even jumped in to assist in critical emergency cases as needed.
“My preceptor said most students wouldn’t do this,” Owens said about her volunteering for the intense experience.
She recently started a new job as a respiratory therapy technician at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta – Egleston campus, her first experience working in pediatrics, which opens another career possibility.
With the help of SBTF scholarship, Owens has the means to finish her RT degree and begin a career caring for others, just like those who cared for her mother. Owens says SBTF continues research to develop new drugs for tumor therapy. Though there is no cure yet, she feels that SBTF is doing what it can to find that cure, and Owens is pleased to support the effort however she can.