GCU TODAY • 2 5
access and population growth, Booker knew
she also needed to keep pace with innovation.
An Internet search led her to GCU’s College
of Nursing and Health Care Professions and an
online degree that would accommodate her life
and courses that would quench her thirst for
learning. Booker enrolled for the fall semester
in 2012 and studied hard for two years, taking
only one two-week break.
“I felt the need to be prepared to understand
and face the challenges of the future, and
I felt this degree would open the door for
opportunities within health care,” she said.
Booker was right: Nine months into her
program, she was contacted by a recruiter
regarding the Sidra position, which required a
master’s degree. About a year later, after talking
with her family and thoroughly investigating the
schools, housing, culture and, well, life in Doha,
she accepted the job. Her family was on board,
as was the U.S. Secretary of State’s office and
the Qatari embassy, which had to sign off on her
degree and background check.
But there was something special Booker
wanted to do before heading east and that was
go west, so she came to Phoenix in October to
walk with her classmates at commencement.
Now that she has started her job, Booker
is discovering the applicability of those GCU
courses, in which she studied emerging health-
care delivery models, the industry’s policies,
economics, legal and ethical principles,
workforce management, leadership styles,
business analyses and more.
“It’s given me a very global perspective
of health care and some very good basics
in change theory, leadership models, the
economics foundations,” Booker said. “I’d
say I use every day a bit of every course that I
took through GCU. For example, we looked at
international health care, which allowed me to
get a big-picture glimpse at developing a whole
new health-care model here.”
She literally is helping build the hospital
from the ground up, Skyping with nurses
around the world (190 whom eventually will
be hired by Sidra into the NICU and brought
to Doha) and ironing out the differences in
a global management team whose members
possess myriad perspectives on health care.
“When you think about building a hospital,
you have to think about the population you’re
going to serve, the equipment you’re going to
need, the team members you want to hire,
the infrastructure you need to have,” she said.
“People from different areas of the world all
believe they do the best, the right thing. So a
lot of what we’re doing now is coming together
to arrive at the best practices internationally
and integrating them into our hospital.”
Finding their place in a foreign land
The work week in Doha is Sunday through
Thursday, and the day begins early, at sunrise.
Booker and her husband, part of a Sidra team
establishing the center’s physical therapy
department, walk outside their home in a gated
compound to catch a bus to work.
The couple arrives at work at about 7 a.m.
and is back home in time to have dinner with
their children, something that rarely happened
in Connecticut because of their schedules.
They often swim together in a compound pool
or go to the gym.
Sidra provides a stipend not only for the
family’s housing but also for the Booker
children to attend a private school, Compass
International. The school offers a rigorous
curriculum, an ultramodern library with
new computers and after-school activities
such as soccer, boating and swimming. The
Booker children have access to field trips that
their mother could have only dreamed of, to
mystical places such as Tanzania and Turkey,
for example.
Qatar has many malls, with familiar stores
such as Sephora and Gap, and markets, where
the Bookers stock up on Coffee-mate and Eggo
waffles. The malls are alongside traditional
markets, or souqs, where goods have been
traded for centuries.
Doha parks and beaches are beautiful, and
the Bookers have jumped into Qatari culture.
They attended a color run in January, when
participants wore all white clothing and were
doused with colored paint by organizers. And
they’ve held falcons, which are very much part
of Qatari culture.
“When I started talking about doing this, I got
many different reactions from people. But now
that we’re here, you meet other like people who
have transported their whole families or still have
families back in the U.S., among other countries,
and you suddenly feel like this is the norm, that
what you’re doing is normal,” she said.
One thing that, for Booker, has taken a
little getting used to is seeing the different
ways that people dress, from black and white
robes to colorful abayas, outer robes worn
by local and Muslim women. It is culturally
sensitive for women to not show their knees
and elbows in public, but in the Bookers’
compound and similar places the restrictions
are relaxed, and shorts and bathing suits by
the pool are the norm.
The heat will be an adjustment, too, but as
temperatures spike to 115 degrees in July and
the Booker children get out of school, the family
will take a multiweek “annual leave,” a Qatari
custom. They most likely will return to the U.S.
to visit family and friends. Before that, however,
a two-week spring break-like trip most likely
will include a visit to Sri Lanka, 2,300 miles to
the southeast near the tip of India.
“I never thought in a million years that I
would be here, looking at these international
places for travel,” she said. “But here I am.”
About Qatar
This sovereign
Arab state in
southwestern Asia
is nearly surrounded
by the Persian Gulf.
Qatar’s population,
which has almost tripled
in 10 years, is estimated at
2.1 million with a majority living in the capital
city of Doha. Arabic is the official language,
but English is commonly used as a second
language. Qatar’s priorities, according to
its emir, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani,
are to advance health care and education
and build infrastructure in preparation for
hosting the 2022 World Cup. Falconry is a
popular hobby in Qatar. The birds are allowed
to travel in the cabins of many Middle Eastern
airlines, usually hooded and tethered to their
handlers’ gloves.
(SOURCES: THE CIA WORLD FACTBOOK, QATAR
STATISTICS AUTHORITY, DOHA NEWS)
Iran
Iraq
Saudi
Arabia
U.A.E
Yemen
Oman
Doha
