Music Teacher, Opera Singer Takes Final Bow, Scrubs into Nursing

FSC Student Lea Garinis Returns to College to Pursue Nursing for her Third Act

Music was Lea Garinis’s first passion. Medicine was a close second. After eight years as a music teacher with classical voice training, she is tackling her nursing studies at FSC with all the fervor of a diva pursuing a lead opera role.

Garinis, a married mother of three from Bellmore, had an epiphany after navigating the pandemic and her oldest child’s potentially fatal illness and decided it was time to hang up her tambourines and triangles and become a nurse. 

“The medical field always intrigued me,” Garinis said. “My mother was an operating room nurse for 45 years. When I first entered college, it was going to be education or medicine, and I chose education.”

Before settling into teaching music in pre-schools, Garinis earned a master’s of music in vocal performance and appeared in several operas, including some with the New York Lyric Opera.

But her focus shifted in 2018 when her son, then 6, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Garinis spent “months within hospital walls” as she put it, tending to her son and working closely with the nurses and doctors treating him. Her son is now cancer-free.

“I made the decision during (the) COVID-19 (pandemic),” she said. “My son’s illness pushed me. I always had medical leanings. I decided it was a good time to switch careers and the idea of nursing gave me a lot of purpose. I spent time discussing my son’s treatment with nurses and working closely with them, and the light went off.” 

Garinis chose FSC after talking to some nurses who attended the college and people who knew nurses who did. “They were clearly prepared, and that was very important to me,” she said. “I wanted to make sure I was prepared for everything that might come up in the medical setting,” she added. “Now that I’m here, I see the students are very disciplined and focused, and they expect a lot from us.”

After spending just a few months at FSC, she has already recommended the program to others and encouraged them to apply.

Garinis completed her first semester in the spring; the nursing program accepts up to 45 transfer students every January, and while deciding which college to enroll in, she took several science classes at Nassau Community College to prepare.

But that didn’t put too much of a dent in the schoolwork. “I was warned that the workload for nursing was hefty –and it’s all true.” Family members have helped out with childcare when necessary, she added.

Already, she has spent time in clinical settings. “The first time you inject medicine into a patient, you realize how serious this is.” Classroom assignments are geared toward preparing students for the supervised clinical experience. “The practice is systemic, progressive, and correlates with classwork.”

The fact that the nursing program is not just rigorous, but draws a variety of people, are big pluses for Garinis. “I love the fact that the program is diverse in age, backgrounds, and experience,” she said. “Some students are 19, others are in their 30s. Some are from Haiti, where they saw the devastation from an earthquake and are studying nursing to help people. (In August 2021, a powerful earthquake struck Haiti, killing more than 2,200 people and injuring 12,760.)  They have genuine and amazing intentions. A lot of them motivate me to be a positive role model.” 

Another motivating factor is her children's pride in her decision to return to school. They get a kick out of them all doing homework together at night, Garinis said. “They think it’s cool.” 

While still deciding in which area to specialize, Garinis is interested in working in an operating room, labor and delivery, or pediatrics department. “But my heart and soul live in the OR.”

Her new career is less of a job and more of a calling, partly inspired by her mother’s words and dedication. “She used to say, ‘If you find something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life,’” noted Garinis.