Inspire, Fall 2007

16 Fall 2007 Feature : Stephani e Carlton ’ 02 From the labor and delivery floor to the Senate floor, Stephanie Carlton ’02 is following her dream of combining health care with a career in politics. Stephanie, a nursing major while at Cedarville, feels that God has opened a perfect door for her to use her love of nursing, her abilities in writing, and her passion for politics in a gatekeeping career in Washington, DC. While her desire to help people led her to major in nursing at Cedarville, Stephanie’s interest in politics drove her to complete an internship between her junior and senior years in Washington, DC, with Representative J.C. Watts. That summer the debate over federal funding for embryonic stem cell research reemerged. Working for Rep. Watts, Stephanie found herself in the middle of the debate and was able to use her writing skills to write Watts’ opinion on the issue. God used this experience to give Stephanie a bigger vision: one in which she could influence public policy in the area of health-care issues. Her dream became finding a job that would combine her nursing degree with writing and politics. God opened that door just a couple of years after graduation. Following her graduation from Cedarville, Stephanie completed a fellowship in labor and delivery nursing at Georgetown University Hospital, then worked as a staff nurse at the hospital for three years. When an opportunity opened, she began to serve as a graduate intern to Sen. Judd Gregg, who was at the time chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. The internship period was a busy time for Stephanie, because in order to pay the bills, she was still working full-time as a nurse at Georgetown. She recalls the busiest point of that period: “I awoke one Sunday and went to church, then took a short afternoon nap before pulling my 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift at the hospital. After my shift, I gulped down two cups of coffee and raced to the Senate to work all day Monday before leading a children’s Bible study that Monday night!” Her busy schedule paid off, however, as this internship opened the door for Stephanie to become a legislative correspondent for Sen. Jim Inhofe for nearly two years. Currently, Stephanie works as legislative assistant to Sen. Tom Coburn, MD, on health-care issues. Coburn is one of only two physicians in the Senate and is a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. As legislative assistant, Stephanie is Coburn’s “point person” on all health-care issues. In this role, Stephanie has had the opportunity to put her passion for health issues to work right away. Her first assignment was to write a bill to overhaul the health-care system! While a seemingly daunting first assignment, Stephanie dove right in, working with various free-market think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, and professors from academic institutions, such as Regina Herzlinger from Harvard University. She also read dozens of books on health care. The goal was to present a conservative vision for A Compassionate Calling, An Influential Voice by Cheryl Warren Brugel ’90