Walter Richard Hewitt, RN grew up in a traditional family home in Hightstown, New Jersey. Inspired by Mickey Mantle and the New York Yankees, Walt and his brother spent most of their free time playing neighborhood sandlot sports.
Walt's mother made a secure, loving home for her family and told her truck-driving husband to make a choice: it was either her or the open road. Walt's dad made the right decision and was home every night with his wife and two boys.
The greatest influence in Walt's young life, though, was probably his maternal grandmother. His grandmother grew up on a farm and, for years, worked as a school cook. What most impressed Walt was that his grandmother treated everyone in her life like they were her best friend. She was a gentle and kind woman who had a calming influence on people.
There were no nurses in Walt's family, in fact he was the first to ever graduate from high school. Instead, his example was seeing ordinary people like his mom and dad and grandmother do great things and he simply thought that was normal.
Walt Hewitt had no idea what he wanted to do when he finished high school, so he headed for the military. When the U.S. Air Force tested Hewitt for skills and aptitude, they informed him that he was most suited for the medical services and sent him off to San Antonio, Texas for training. Thus began Hewitt's four-year stint as a medic which took him to Okinawa and Taiwan. This time the ordinary people he watched doing really great things were nurses and he said to himself, “Wait a minute. I could do this.” While stationed overseas, Hewitt applied to nursing school back home and was accepted.
Still in his mid-twenties, Walt Hewitt began nursing school and there he met his future wife, Grainne. Now the father of two grown daughters, Walt jokes, “If you can't get a girl in a class of 200 women and five men, you've gotta be some pathetic loser.”
Walt now passes down to his own family the closeness and values he learned as a kid. His oldest daughter Valerie also inherited her father's sense of humor. “You don't get many sick days off from school when both of your parents are nurses!”
Val Hewitt, who works for the American Red Cross, says “We are a very close-knit family. The kind that sits down to dinner together, turns off the TV and just talks.”
“Our extended family is very close too and Dad's a big part of their lives. Growing up I remember almost every weekend doing something with all my cousins. Dad would take the whole motley crew camping or to the park to play stick ball then he'd make us waffles for breakfast. He's a great guy.”
Val talks about when her dad returned to Texas to join the teams of Red Cross volunteers that flocked in to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. “What I love about my dad is that he sees the need and just goes. Then he pulls other people into the project. He's an amazing man.”
Walt took his youngest daughter, college student, Jackie Hewitt with him on a couple of medical/dental mission trips to Bolivia. He heads down to either Bolivia or Venezuela every other year. At age 40, he made his first trip into the jungles with World Gospel Missions. At the end of a very long day he found himself lying on a wooden church pew thinking “If one more new thing happens, I'm going to freak out.” Then he simply drifted off to sleep. In the morning the anxious feelings were gone and he was able to care for the people in the village.
Walt says of medical missions, “I get much more out of going than I could ever give back in services.”
Walt started his nursing career working nights in neo-natal intensive care prior to taking a position in college health care at the Busch-Livingston Health Center. BLHC is one of the health care facilities at Rutgers that provides health care for the entire student population, the equivalent of a small town of 40,000.
“I love dealing with young adults every day.” Walt says. “It keeps you young. In fact, I still feel 20 years old ... unless I look in the mirror that is. But until then, I'm good.” The regular weight training Walt does before work and walking after he gets home certainly can’t hurt either
Walt actively participates in “useful” clinical research projects, especially those that effect young adults and help him create for them what he calls “a safe place.” The project that he did on body art has virtually dispelled any class bias against college students sporting tattoos and was published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing Research. At present, Hewitt is part of a research team investigating the realities of emergency contraception in the United States.
Walt Hewitt is a very compassionate & caring person. In everything he does, it's clear that he cares about the people around him.
“Nursing is a great career with so many options and choices.”
“When I was growing up it didn't even enter my mind to be a nurse. In my thinking, nurses were women.
When I went into the air force, I couldn't believe how cool nursing was! I had a chance to see men doing it and doing it well.”
