Nursing Graduate Honors Late Daughter Through Care and Compassion
Sarah Fowler, originally from Lebanon, Tennessee, has been a caregiver most of her life. She became a certified nursing assistant at 17, inspired by a family full of nurses.
But it was the experience of caring for her daughter Kyla, who was born at just 23 weeks, that gave her nursing career a deeper purpose. Fowler, who is graduating this May with an associate degree in nursing from UA Little Rock, began the program just months before Kyla passed away in 2023 at age 6.
“I started nursing school in the summer, and Kyla passed that November. I was literally transitioning between classes when it happened,” Fowler said. “If I had walked away then, everything my daughter taught me would have gone to waste, so I pushed through.”
After Kyla’s death, another tragedy followed. Fowler lost her newborn niece just three months later. Even so, she remained committed to her path, leaning on her husband, Travis, their 9-year-old daughter, a close-knit group of friends, and a supportive faculty.
“They worked with me in the moments when I wasn’t okay,” Fowler said of her nursing professors, including SarahBeth Phillips, Anna Williams, Judy Staley, and Dr. Charles Molsbee. “They made it possible for me to keep going.”
Fowler has long felt called to nursing. She comes from a long line of healthcare workers — nearly all her aunts are nurses, and her mother is a medical assistant and x-ray technician. But it was caring for Kyla that solidified her dream.
“Being with her in the hospital for so long made me realize this is what I was meant to do,” she said. “I want to be the nurse for others that I needed during those times.”
That sense of purpose was especially clear through service projects benefiting Ronald McDonald House. Fowler’s family had spent more than 160 days across three different Ronald McDonald Houses while Kyla received treatment, and she wanted to give back to the organization that had given them so much comfort and support.
Fowler’s classmates in Alpha Delta Nu, the nursing honor society, completed a capstone service project at Ronald McDonald House in Little Rock in April 2024 in honor of Kyla. The nursing students spent the day cleaning, organizing playrooms, and connecting with families who were facing their own medical challenges.
The experience was a powerful tribute to Kyla’s memory and a defining moment for Fowler, who was moved to organize a Halloween celebration for the children at Ronald McDonald House last year.
“The Halloween celebration was near Kyla’s one-year death anniversary,” Fowler said. “We organized a Halloween dress-up party and had a pumpkin decorating contest with the kids. It was a pretty incredible moment, and I got to highlight one of the biggest reasons why I want to do what I am doing.”
Now that her degree is complete, Fowler isn’t slowing down. She’s already enrolled in UA Little Rock’s RN to BSN online program and plans to complete her bachelor’s degree by May 2026. She has accepted a critical care nursing position at Sumner Regional Medical Center in Gallatin, Tennessee, which is just 15 minutes from her hometown. It’s a long-awaited homecoming for Fowler and her family, who moved to Arkansas in 2017 for Travis’s military service.
“Critical care is where my heart has always been,” she said. “Eventually, I want to go into flight nursing, working on medical evacuation flights. That’s my five-year-plan, and to eventually get my master’s degree in nursing. The ability to think critically in crisis situations drives my desire to help other people.”
Fowler said her experience in UA Little Rock’s nursing program helped prepare her for that goal. Hands-on training in the Center for Simulation Innovation gave her confidence, while the strong sense of community kept her grounded.
“The program is what you make of it,” she said. “There are sacrifices. You’ll miss time with your kids and your significant other. But if you stick with it, the payout is immeasurable. It’s about answering a calling.”
Looking back, Fowler says she wouldn’t have made it without the friends and mentors who surrounded her.
“I surrounded myself with people who wanted the same things for me that I wanted for myself,” she said. “We leaned on each other. That kind of community makes all the difference.”