Sprinting to a medical career

IT’S HARD TO SAY whether Yasmine Hernandez has been a model college student or a model collegiate athlete – she is such a standout at both. So much so, Hernandez represents CSU Pueblo in display advertising on buses, benches, and billboards around Southern Colorado. She’s even the first person you’ll see on the CSU Pueblo website.

“It was really important to me, a really big priority, to do the best in both,” said Hernandez, a first-generation college student who grew up in Johnstown, in Northern Colorado. “There wasn’t a special secret to it. It was just two things I wanted really badly, so I made sure I worked hard. Being busy never bothers me, and I thrived in the structure.”

Hernandez graduated from CSU Pueblo with a bachelor’s degree in nursing in 2021. The following year, she earned two master’s degrees – in business administration and nursing management and leadership. She attained all three degrees with the highest academic honors, summa cum laude.

She hopes to one day become a hospital chief executive officer. To start her career, Hernandez works at Parkview Medical Center in Pueblo as a nurse in the neurology and stroke unit.

“It’s really an honor to get to be a small part of people’s lives. It’s rewarding to make a patient smile and to make sure they’re comfortable and that I’m able to help them get better,” Hernandez said.

As she does that work, Hernandez has another demanding job: She is training for track and field competition at the Olympic Trials, with her sights on the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Hernandez is a middle-distance runner, specializing in 800-meter and 1,500-meter races. In preparation for the Olympic Trials, her goal is to run 1,500 meters – just under a mile – in 4:05. That’s 16 seconds shy of the women’s world record. “My main goal is to see what I’m capable of,” she said.

Her talent is clear: Hernandez was named 2022 NCAA Division II Women’s Outdoor Track & Field National Scholar Track Athlete of the Year. She also was a Top 30 honoree for the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year Award, which covers all divisions and all sports; there were nearly 600 nominees. The Colorado Sports Hall of Fame recognized Hernandez as the 2022 Collegiate Women’s Athlete of the Year, the first female athlete from CSU Pueblo honored by the organization. To earn those and other notable honors, she broke multiple school records, won a national title in the 2022 NCAA Division II women’s 1,500, and anchored CSU Pueblo’s national championship distance medley relay team.

Hernandez chatted about academics and athletics after a 10-mile training run, a small part of weekly workouts that typically include 70 miles of running and many reps in strength training.

Her efforts on the track and in the classroom have been mutually beneficial and together have offered ideal training for a career in medicine, Hernandez said.

“My time as a student-athlete is the best thing I could do for myself as a professional,” she said. “As student-athletes, we have to be so disciplined. We have to be leaders on our teams and learn to always give our best effort. I take all those things with me in everything I do.”

Photo at top: Yasmine Hernandez, left, is an alumna of CSU Pueblo who was a headlining student-athlete and represents the university in an advertising campaign. Photo: Jordan Menard-UIndy / CSU Pueblo.