Joodi Mourhli - Challenging Stereotypes on Nursing

There is a stereotype in Syria, and perhaps the whole region, that nursing is somewhat a second-grade profession in the medical field and that top students should be doctors. However, Cambridge scholar Joodi Mourhli is out to change this.

A top student at school and during her Bachelor’s at the American University in Beirut, where she studied Nursing as a Tomorrow’s Leaders Middle East Partnership Initiative fully-funded Scholar, Joodi has always dreamed of joining the healthcare profession.

She chose nursing over medical school for pragmatic reasons. A planner by nature, Joodi grew up in Saudi Arabia, and with the Syrian conflict and its aftermath, did not feel like she could go back to Syria in 2019 for her bachelor’s degree. She also knew she couldn’t afford medical school and its required long graduate programs - this is when she opted for a degree in nursing.

“I needed something that would get me into the real world practically and open so many doors. Nursing options are endless and so diverse,” she explains.

When she told her mother, who is a biologist, of her desire to become a nurse she found a lot of support and realized her mother herself had wanted to pursue a career in nursing. “But it was a stigmatized profession back home because it is not a bachelor of science it is more of a vocational training and her parents didn't want her to pursue this because of her academic excellence. Like her, I was a top student and the perfect candidate to become a doctor. However, I wanted to prove you can and should be top of your class if you want to become a nurse.”

Jusoor and Rowan Williams Cambridge Studentship

As she was entering her final year at AUB, her limited options as a Syrian dawned on her. She could not practice nursing in Lebanon as non-residents are not allowed. She also couldn’t get a job in the Gulf since there was only demand for experienced nurses. Her options were either to go back to Syria or to continue her studies and pursue her master’s degree. 

By that point in time, she had taken on a lot of research assistant positions which developed her interest in population health sciences — which she opted to pursue so she could open several avenues for herself in career options.

Through support from the Syrian Youth Empowerment’s (SYE) Grad Program. Joodi applied to several top schools around the world. Even though she got several conditional offers from universities such as Yale, Stanford, and UCL — she needed a full scholarship to be able to afford the program. 

When she got the offer from Cambridge with the Rowan Williams Scholarship in collaboration with Jusoor to pursue her degree in population health sciences, her dream had come true. The day she received the acceptance email she was at AUB’s Rafik al-Hariri Nursing School celebrating Nursing Day with her colleagues. “As I read the email, I was looking for that sentence that this is a partial scholarship but I didn't find it or the words unfortunately or we regret… It was the happiest day of my life.”

Challenges & Support

Coming from a solid support system in Lebanon with people from a similar background and a strong community of MEPI scholars, Joodi found moving and settling into her new life in Cambridge a lot more challenging than she had initially thought.

“It was my first time out of the region. I felt lonely and full of doubt. However, Jusoor was able to help me by connecting me with a counselor,” she explains. “I needed the support as spending all this time alone was taking a toll on my mental health and my confidence. the counselor helped me work through these issues and take proactive steps to take care of myself.”

What the future holds

After graduation, Joodi hopes to find a job in clinical practice as a bedside nurse in addition to a research job. “I want to become this link between research and clinical practice” she explains.

Joodi’s long-term dream is to run her own scholarship program for Syrian students. “I related to ambitious Syrian students who desire to overcome their financial constraints and prove to the world that if provided the means they can make it. I want to provide others with the means in the same way the people who have selected me for my scholarships have done for me.”

Joodi has already taken steps toward that dream by volunteering as a mentor with SYE to help other Syrian youth pursue their academic dreams.