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Dreaming of America in Liberia

Salwa Bamba provides a first-person account of how the generosity of others propelled her success.

Salwa Bamba

My name is Salwa Rita Mourtada Bamba. I am originally from Liberia in West Africa, and I came to the United States seeking asylum when I was 20 years old.

Before the civil war, life in Liberia was everything a kid would hope for. I had two brothers and my older sister. We grew up together on a huge property where my father had a couple of stores and a restaurant. There were gazebos and tables all over the compound, a basketball court, volleyball court, and a playground with swings, merry-go-round, seesaw, monkey bars. It was a kid’s dream.

But when the war started in 1989, everything changed.

I was 12 when the country started to get tense. We could tell something was wrong, and we would see footage on TV of the massacres. We watched the rebels advance toward the capital and as they approached our area, we saw the fires, the looting, the rape. My father was captured and we didn’t see him for a long time. It was just me, my siblings and my mom in a camp. Everything was destroyed. We were sleeping on the floor. We had nothing.

Salwa Bamba with siblings in Liberia

We were reunited with my father in 1991, but not long after that, my sister Laila Annette was captured and murdered. Believe it or not, our family never sat down to talk about her death. I don’t think any of us have the courage to reminisce about her life because we’re afraid to break down. She had so many dreams. She would say, “I want to be an artist. I want to be a surgeon. I want to be a firefighter.”

After Laila’s death, my parents sent me to Ghana to stay with an acquaintance from church, who provided a place to live, but no other support. It was so difficult not having parents with me as a 14-year-old. When I got sick with typhoid fever, I had no one to take care of me. I would go to the hospital and there was no one to pay the bill.

Salwa Bamba as a teenager, she is smiling and wearing a white dress with pink, green and yellow geometric designs.

After I graduated from high school in Ghana, I started to dream about studying medicine in the United States. I had become interested in medicine during a period of relative peace in Liberia, when I helped United Nations doctors care for the sick and injured as a 13-year-old triage nurse. It brought me so much fulfillment to watch people get better. And I had always dreamed about America. In Liberia, all of our school books were from America, so I knew about Pecos Bill and tornados. At my dad’s restaurant, I would change my accent to speak like an American.

My dad had connections, so when I told him about my dream of studying in the United States, he talked to the American ambassador for me. Eventually, when I was 20, I came to New York City by myself. Reality hit me when I arrived at my aunt’s place in Queens and I saw that she had six children in a two-bedroom apartment. I started missing my nice beach back home.

After a year in New York City, I moved to Colorado, where my uncle lived, and I started pursuing a bachelor’s degree in nursing at CU Denver. Because of my temporary protected status, I was never eligible for federal or state aid, which meant I had to work for one semester to save up money, go to class for a semester, and then stop to save up money again. To add to the challenge, my temporary protected status would expire every 18 months, along with my driver’s license and my ability to work. That’s when I really had to hustle.

Later, when I had children, we relied on food stamps and food pantries. At one point, I was homeless and slept in my car with my son. Before one particular semester, I begged the bursar to let me register even though I didn’t have the money to cover the fees. He suggested I apply for scholarships. I said, “I don’t have a green card. I’m not eligible.” He replied, “You might find one or two that don’t have those requirements.” So, I looked and finally found one for $2,500. I applied, and lo and behold, I got it. From then on, I would always enter to win some award, and I would receive $1,500 here and there.

I also got help from people who knew what I was made of. My pastor loaned me $3,000 to pay for my first semester at CU. My brother loaned me a few hundred dollars here and there. When my dad was alive, he would send me money. And a few years ago, my mom loaned me $5,000 to pay for a semester of my master’s program. People have stood by me and pushed me. I stand on their shoulders today and I am proud.

Salwa with work colleagues at her clinic

My life changed when I graduated with my bachelor’s degree and got my nursing license. I moved out of my little condo where the landlord was after me every week and rented a beautiful apartment. Fifteen years after I arrived in America, I finally found my feet.

While I was working on my bachelor’s degree, I was always driving up and down Colfax Avenue. I watched the Fitzsimons campus being transformed into the Anschutz Medical Campus and I said to myself, “I will graduate from here one day.”

True to my word, I did graduate from the University of Colorado College of Nursing in 2020, and I currently work there as an assistant professor and at the CU Family Health Clinic as a nurse practitioner. I love my job. When I learn that a patient has done something I told them to do, I yell, “Oh my god!” and everyone comes running, thinking something’s wrong. But I’m just celebrating that my patient is doing OK. The saying is true: Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

The benevolence of others has been crucial to the story of my success. I cannot overemphasize how their willingness to help and be of service has impacted my life and my children. My daughter and son are both scholarship recipients at CU Boulder, and my son is about to complete his engineering degree with scholarship support from the Engineering GoldShirt Program.

Sometimes I wish my journey would not have been so rough. But despite everything, I am blessed. Everything that happened along the way has prepared me for what I will be called to do tomorrow.

Salwa Bamba with family. They are wearing white shirts and blue jeans.

With scholarship support, Salwa Bamba graduated with three degrees from CU: a bachelor’s degree in nursing in 2011, a master’s degree in nursing in May 2020, and doctor of nursing practice degree in 2021. She joined the first nurse practitioner fellowship in geriatric medicine at the UCHealth Senior’s Clinic, and she serves as a board member of the CU College of Nursing Alumni Association and the Community College of Denver Business Administration Advisory Board.

Bamba is currently a clinical faculty member at the CU College of Nursing’s Belleview Point Clinic, a facility for patients from marginalized backgrounds. She also mentors high school students through Denver Public Schools and has worked with the Cherry Creek School District to host immunization drives for low-income students and families. As a student at the CU College of Nursing, Bamba and a group of classmates started Future Voices, an organization striving to amplify the voices of underrepresented nursing students. The group currently runs a mentorship program with Hinckley High School, hosts donation drives for books and scrubs, and fundraises to help nursing students pay for school. Bamba also runs the Laila A. Mourtada Foundation; named after Bamba’s sister, the foundation focuses on education and health literacy for women and girls in Liberia.

Why not be fearless when fighting a global pandemic?

Why not be fearless when fighting a global pandemic?

Why not be fearless when fighting a global pandemic?

CU Anschutz's Dr. Michelle Barron battles the COVID-19 pandemic on the front lines and keeps smiling despite the challenges.

Why not be fearless when fighting a global pandemic?

Why not be fearless when fighting a global pandemic?

CU Anschutz's Dr. Michelle Barron battles the COVID-19 pandemic on the front lines and keeps smiling despite the challenges.

Dr. Michelle Barron has had a tough three years. When the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a national emergency in the U.S. in March 2020, her job put her on the front lines.  

But Barron, the senior medical director of infection prevention and control for UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, and her team were up for the challenge, drawing on years of experience researching infectious diseases to improve public health outcomes.

Our team approaches every day asking ourselves, ‘Why not aim for zero preventable infections?’ Then we build systems and operations to make that a reality.
-- Dr. Michelle Barron

“Fear of the unknown doesn’t scare me at all because this is what I do. I’m an infectious disease doctor and I do detective work,” Barron says. “I often start with unknowns and that's what drives me to try and figure out what is wrong.”


Responding to the Unknown Without Fear

As an expert on infectious diseases, Barron’s job involves planning for pandemics before they happen.

“People don’t think about this, but pandemics occur about every 10 years. They’re not all of the same magnitude, but if you’re in my world, you prepare,” Barron says. “You think through what resources you need for patients and for staff.”

So, when COVID-19 hit in March 2020, Barron and her staff were able to take a systematic approach to understanding the pandemic even though there were so many unknowns.

“We were dealing with a new disease. In addition to a lack of information, there was also an unbelievable amount of erroneous information. The evidence wasn’t as firm as we were used to, everything was changing quickly,” she says. “It was like working in a hurricane.”

 

Dr. Michelle Barron at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospita

Dr. Michelle Barron at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital.

 


To develop an effective pandemic response, Barron and her team drew on existing models from the 1918 flu pandemic and other pandemics to predict disease spread, to plan for staffing shortages and hospital triage measures and to determine how to prevent transmission.

“While I can appreciate that some things are not preventable, our team approaches every day asking ourselves, ‘Why not aim for zero preventable infections?’” Barron says. “Then we build systems and operations to make that a reality.”

With these models, they were able to plan for hospital staff and their family members getting sick which enabled them to backfill positions and plan for staff to miss work due to their children’s school closures.


Inspiring Patients and Donors

Barron's can-do attitude has drawn attention from donors over the years.  

After a rare bacterial infection landed George Sissel in the hospital in 2019, he and his wife Mary Sissel were so impressed by Barron’s approach to diagnosis that they decided to support her research.  

Barron says their generous offer came at a particularly crucial time for her.

“I had been wanting to look at how many people get fungal infections,” she recalls. “It’s an important area of study but it’s not something you get federal grants for. When I met the Sissels, I had just been getting to the point where I was about to say I’m not doing research anymore.”

With help from the Sissel family, Barron’s research got back on track. Barron has since partnered with her colleague, Dr. Esther Benamu, to complete a study on fungal infections in patients with underlying blood cancers or transplants. Barron is also investigating the links between COVID-19 and fungal infections.


Working with Communities

In addition to providing patient care, conducting research and steering the hospital through its pandemic response, Barron also partners with churches, community centers and other local organizations on community outreach. Barron’s team leverages the organizations’ community connections to reach the largest number of people.

“Often, the natural cultural navigators will be community members with a bit of health care training that people seek out when they need something,” she says. “Once you find them, you sit down with them and get them on board. That’s how you reach the rest of the community.”  

Barron also made it a priority to support public COVID-19 vaccination drives throughout Colorado. At one vaccine drive held next to a Broncos training camp, Barron spoke with local news reporters who were on site to cover the training camp.

“People actually showed up and said, ‘We saw you on the news just now and thought, well, why not?’” Barron recalls. “That was one of my heart-melting moments where I was so happy I do this work. If I can convince one person to get a vaccine, I’ve made a difference in the world and that matters to me.”

 

Barron (in background) oversees vaccination event for the Denver

Barron (in background) oversees vaccination event for the Denver

Although Barron says she was never afraid during the pandemic, her anxiety level would rise and fall based on what was happening. She struggled with “turning off” after long and stressful days, but personal support from friends like the Sissels sustained her through the toughest times. “Like many of my friends did throughout the pandemic, Mary and George would text me if they saw me on the news or on a campus presentation to wish me well,” Barron says. “Their philanthropy is an example of how they watched and cared for me, but they also did this in a very personal way.”

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stethoscopes

Nina Jean was a rancher’s daughter, who passed down the value of working hard and helping others. She was the kind of grandmother who let you pick out whatever sugary cereal you wanted in the grocery store and who baked an extra pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving so you could eat it for breakfast the next morning.

“And she was the most stylish Grammy on the block, with the perfect hand bag and the best shoes,” says Sarah Milliken Glabe, MD. “She had a way of always making you feel special, whether you were in her presence or miles away.”

In honor of her Grammy, Sarah gives $175 every year to the Medical Alumni Association Stethoscope Fund at CU Anschutz Medical Campus.  

Every $175 buys a stethoscope for a first-year medical student at CU. Since the late 1990s, thousands of CU medical students have received stethoscopes at an annual ceremony to welcome them to School of Medicine and to the beginning of their medical careers.

“I felt impacted by the gift of a stethoscope when I was a medical student, and I hope that same impact is felt by students who come after me.” Sarah said. “It’s a reminder of the physicians we all have come to medical school to be and hopefully be in our careers after we leave.”  

When Sarah was a first-year student in 2004, the medical school was still at Ninth and Colorado in Denver. Each student invited only two guests because the auditorium was small, and the happy crowd was standing room only. One by one, Dean Richard Krugman, MD, called the students to the stage. A professor gave Sarah a white physician coat and put a stethoscope around her neck.

“It was the first real feeling that I was a doctor,” Sarah said. “To this day the stethoscope serves as a reminder of why I got into medicine in the first place—that compassion and empathy with each patient is needed.”

Especially when the patient is your Grammy.

When Nina Jean was dying of bladder cancer, the doctors who treated her were “the kind of physicians who take a little extra time even when their schedule probably says not to,” Sarah said. “That intimate connection between you and the patient is so important. They allow you to be a part of their care, especially in what can be a scary and vulnerable time in their life. I think about how difficult my grandmother’s life was at the end, and the kindness and patience of these doctors really meant something to her, to my mom and to me.”

Now Sarah is the one standing on the stage at the White Coat Ceremony handing out stethoscopes to students as part of the Medical Alumni Association.   

“I still have my stethoscope from CU. It was the stethoscope I first used, and I won’t ever get rid of it. Who knows? Maybe 50 years from now it will be found by one of my grandchildren and it will connect me to them.”

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Old Main Building

Before there was the state of Colorado, there was the University of Colorado.

Before there was CU, a courageous and tenacious few were so profoundly committed to the transformative power of an education.

The idea of a public university in the young Colorado territory was considered a valuable and worthwhile pursuit as early as 1861. But political disputes, economic distress and local jealousies stalled the idea from becoming a reality for years. Some folks clamored that Colorado didn’t have any use for an academic institution.

But some early settlers never gave up.

First, there was the gift of land. Three Boulder families—Marinus and Annie Smith, George and Mary Andrews, and Anthony and Mary Arnett—collectively donated 51 acres of land on the heights south of Boulder Creek, which was formally accepted in January 1872 by the legislature as the permanent location of the future university.

Funds were still needed for a university building. Bitter rivalries among Colorado’s lawmakers, who wanted their communities selected instead as the home for a public university, continued to embroil the idea for another two years. Then, in January 1874, the Colorado Territorial Legislature agreed to provide $15,000, a sizeable sum in those days, toward a university on the condition Boulder citizens contribute an equal amount.

David Nichols, the territory’s speaker of the house and a Boulder resident, realized he needed to immediately raise the necessary funds, lest his town lose the opportunity.

Legend has it, Nichols said: “If $15,000 is what they want, we’ll get it.”  

Like Paul Revere, he rode by horseback that cold and rainy January night for five hours the 30 miles between Denver to Boulder to knock on the doors of ordinary citizens to see if they could—if they would—donate the money.

The fate of CU hung in the balance.

By the time a weary Nichols was back at his legislative seat in Denver the next morning, Boulder residents—104 parties, to be exact—had pledged the funds needed to secure the University of Colorado, and the appropriation bill passed.

Collectively, the citizens of Boulder committed a total of $16,806.66—more than enough to give the fledgling university a permanent home. Pledges ranged from $15 to $1,000. More than half the donors contributed fewer than $100. Finally, after long years of struggle, the University of Colorado was more than an idea—it had sufficient funds to begin the construction of the first university building.

On Sept. 20, 1875, the cornerstone for Old Main was laid. By the following spring, CU officially opened its doors, five months before the Centennial State joined the union in 1876.

After 15 years of effort, and though these early philanthropic contributions placed a true hardship on Boulder’s frontier families, their commitment to education remains an enduring testament to what CU stands for to this day.

It is a legacy upon which we continue to build and honor.

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chris and brad cillian

In 2006, Christine Cillian’s life changed forever. She wouldn’t know how severely for another two years.

Christine, then 29, suffered a severe neurological attack that she had thought pointed to multiple sclerosis. Her arms fell limp. She couldn’t walk. Her body failed to function.    

“Everything turned upside down,” she says.

Doctors at the time said she didn’t have MS. But she learned in January 2008 they were wrong: An MRI revealed brain lesions and definitively diagnosed Christine with the disease.

Over several months, she grappled with anxiety, fatigue and depression—the “silent symptoms,” her husband, Brad, calls them.

They immediately turned to the Rocky Mountain Multiple Sclerosis Center at University of Colorado, where national-caliber research and treatment is paired with compassionate support and education. There, they started an “MS 101” class, sought a second opinion and soon began aggressive care.

Dr. Timothy Vollmer, a center co-director, told Christine that without intensive treatment, she faced severe disability. So Christine participated in clinical trials and took a drug developed for cancer but effective in treating MS. And she confronted her disease comprehensively with exercise, counseling, education and medicine.

“That’s how I want to treat my disease—aggressively,” Christine says.

Now life—upside down to this point—has began to right itself. The possibility of a brighter future seems within Christine’s reach.

As it’s done for many patients, the MS Center is slowing the disease and its effects with the patient-centered care it’s practiced for more than 30 years.

Brad says it’s revolutionizing future care within Colorado and across the nation.

“We’re lucky to have it in our backyard,” he says, adding that the center’s doctors hold weekend seminars around the country, so more than just Front Range patients benefit from the center’s expertise. “Everybody gets access to best-in-the-country care.”

That top-notch treatment happens, the Cillians note, partly because gifts support the center. Donor generosity enables staff to work toward earlier diagnoses, individualized care and research that identifies steps toward, perhaps, a cure.

MS changed everything for the Cillians. But the MS Center is changing everything again—her health, their marriage, their perspective—for the better.

In gratitude, the Cillians donate to the center, and Brad serves on its board.

“We’ve gotten so much out of the center that the bare minimum we can do is give back so that others can have that access,” he says.

That is access, Christine says, to more than innovative treatment; it’s a partnership with people who care deeply for their patients.

“It's not just a job for them,” she says. “These people are truly passionate about doing something about MS.”

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