Luis Gino (“Luigi”) Guzman grew up in the Philippines, where his mother works in a small community hospital, the place where his path to becoming an emergency nurse practitioner began. Guzman said he often went there after school, exploring to pass the time as he waited for his mother to finish work.
“The hospital was my playground. That was my after-school activity. I played with the nurses, the lab techs. I saw how they moved, and I saw how they helped people,” Guzman said.
Guzman earned his bachelor’s degree in nursing from De Los Santos-STI College, his master’s degree in Adult Health at St. Paul University Philippines and he has worked in several emergency and trauma departments. He recalled that in his third year of studies, he helped respond to a pediatric code. That event cemented his interest in emergency nursing, even though the child didn’t survive.
“I knew then that emergency was my passion,” he said. “I felt at that time I didn’t want to feel that pain for the parents. I wanted to help.”
After five years working in the Philippines, he moved to Bermuda to be the charge nurse in the island’s only emergency department. He later served as manager for quality and patient safety and clinical risk management. In that role, his led education about sepsis, both for groups around the island and among hospital staff. He also earned a master’s in health care administration from Walden University.
During his time in Bermuda, Guzman joined ENA and began attending the association’s annual conferences, recruiting his colleagues to join ENA along the way. The education was important, he said, because there weren’t many opportunities to access updated information where they were.
“Island medicine is different. There are less resources,” he said.
Guzman moved to Florida in 2019 where he worked in an emergency department in Tallahassee and completed a post-MSN certificate in Family Nurse Practitioner at University of Alabama. As an advanced practice nurse, he said he still felt at home in ENA.
“We have different kinds of challenges, but we need the voice and the advanced education (that ENA can provide),” he said. He also served a term on the Global Advisory Council and on the Emergency Nursing Conference Education Planning Committee prior to joining the Emergency Nursing Advanced Practice Advisory Council.
Guzman and his wife relocated to New Jersey in 2022 to be near her family. He currently works in the Hoboken University Medical Center ED, where he is a preceptor. He is also an adjunct faculty at William Paterson University of New Jersey.
Outside of work, Guzman volunteers for his county’s Medical Reserve Corps. He and other volunteers were most recently deployed to help with health exams and education for newly arrived migrants staying in New Jersey shelters.
After two master’s degrees, Guzman now has his sights set on earning one more degree next year. He is pursuing his Doctor of Nursing Practice through the University of Alabama, where his work is focused on street medicine. He wants to develop education for nurses that covers caring for and advocating for patients who are homeless, something he said he didn’t receive as a nursing student.
“I have a soft spot for them, because we are the only ones they can go to, the only ones they ask for help,” he said. “A homeless patient has different needs, a lot of history you need to ask so you know how to activate social services.”
