Profile: Nursing Professor Connie Ragiel

Video special
Channel 9 Replay: 5 p.m. Sunday Jan. 14, 2001
Watch a replay of the Channel 9 Web cast
Get RealPlayer 8 to watch the Web cast.

The following is a profile of a UC faculty member featured in the Channel 9 special "One Day: University of Cincinnati." Find out about other featured students and faculty at www.uc.edu/oneday/.

To educate and serve people. That is Connie Ragiel's mission in life and what brought her to the University of Cincinnati.

"I wanted to be part of the UC community, because it has a devotion to educating and serving people," Ragiel said. "That matches my goal in life."

Ragiel has been successful in her mission by making a difference in the lives of not only UC community members, but to Greater Cincinnati as a whole.

Five years ago, Ragiel took a yearlong sabbatical from her faculty position at UC. During that time, with start-up support from the College of Nursing, she opened a clinic in Over-The-Rhine, an underprivileged area near downtown Cincinnati. The clinic, The Health Resource Center, is now supported by donations.

It provides free mental health and medical care to members of the community who might otherwise not receive it. Clients receive holistic care with services such as physical and mental health assessments, counseling, social services and more at no cost to them. It is the only clinic of its kind in the city and one of just a handful across the United States.

"Our clinic is providing a service for people who don't have options for health care," Ragiel said. "They have very limited choices, so they come to us and we take care of all parts of them, not just the sick parts."

Ragiel says the best part of her work is that it is very satisfying. "The people are very wonderful to work with," she said. "They are very appreciative of what we are doing for them. It is very rewarding, knowing I am making a difference in somebody's life."

But it is also very demanding.

"Sometimes the clients make unhealthy choices or they behave inappropriately," she said. "But we still see them. We also work very hard to find funding to keep the clinic running."

Serving a joint appointment as a professor of nursing at UC and as director of the clinic keeps Ragiel pretty busy.

"I teach nursing to graduate and undergraduate students at UC," Ragiel said. "On top of that, I spend four days a week at the clinic, seeing patients, fundraising and doing all of the administrative work that needs to be done."

Despite her busy schedule, Ragiel has still found time for herself and her six children. She recently married fellow UC faculty member Robert Wilson, a professor of counseling who also volunteers several hours each week at the clinic.

When asked why she devoted her life to helping others, she simply said, "I wanted to know that I did something worthwhile with my life."

Background
Ragiel is a professor in the UC College of Nursing. She has been a member of the university faculty for 25 years. She began her work in 1962 when she graduated from Mercy College in Detroit, Mich. with a degree in nursing. She went on to earn her master's degree in 1968 from Wayne State University, also located in Detroit. She joined the UC faculty in 1975 and received her doctorate degree in 1989.