Hector Rosso

Caring Through Grief: Héctor Rosso’s Pursuit of a PhD to Help Others Heal

A life of service and love for nursing has led Héctor Rosso to the PhD Program of Nursing in Caring Science at the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing.

Originally from Uruguay, he has worked as a nurse for more than 27 years, but his passion for caring emerged when he was a Boy Scout in the early 1980s.

“I really liked learning about first aid and caring for others,” Rosso shared. When he was 15 years old, the Scout Group sent him to the Uruguayan Red Cross to take a first aid course.

“From that moment on, I fell in love with providing care and helping others,” he said. As soon as he turned 18, Rosso began his nursing career.

After becoming a nursing assistant in 1991 and getting a BSN in 2008, he went on to receive a double master's degree in strategic management and health organizations and postgraduate specialties as a Diabetes Educator and Family and Community Health Nurse Practitioner.

For most of his career, Rosso worked in the only Public Pediatric Hospital in Uruguay, going from Emergency and Intensive Care Unit nurse to becoming Head of Nursing and developing the Diabetes Education program for Pediatrics

He also served as Professor and Director of the Department of Education and Community Health of the Faculty of Nursing and Health Technologies at the Catholic University of Uruguay and worked in a leadership position at a large psychiatric hospital.

A scholar inductee of The Global Academy of Holistic Nursing, Rosso is a faculty member of the Watson Caring Science Institute and leads the WCSI Latino Iberoamérica programs to support Spanish and Portuguese-speaking health professionals.

“My area of research is grief, pain and resilience in the loss of a child,” Rosso said, adding that his dissertation specifically will be a qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study on grief in Latino fathers entitled "The Lived Experience of Grieving Latino Fathers who have Lost a Child."

Rosso wrote a book, Spiritual Awakening of a Nurse, reflecting on his experience as a nurse and a father, after losing his 13-year-old daughter to cancer.

He said it is his goal and desire to be able to help other parents through the experience of such profound loss. Rosso also hopes to share with his fellow nurses and health care professionals what human caring means in this complex and painful stage of grief that many families go through.

Rosso also continues to support the scout movement and recently volunteered for a week at the D-BAR-A SCOUT RANCH in Michigan. Additionally, he works for different professional organizations like Global Academy of Holistic Nursing and International Association for Human Caring in the U.S.

“Serving others is part of my life,” he said.

Since starting his work and research in Caring Science, Rosso credits Dr. Jean Watson, Dr. Marlaine Smith, Dr. Marilyn Ray, Dr. Howard Butcher and the entire Watson Caring Science Institute family as the mentors who supported and inspired him.

“The doctorate program has given me the opportunity to delve deeper into my beloved profession, nursing, specifically in the field of Human Caring Science” he said. Rosso credits the program for strengthening his ontological, epistemological, methodological and philosophical knowledge of human caring.

Set to graduate at the end of 2026, Rosso plans to continue to spread Human Caring Science worldwide from his position as director of the Watson Caring Science Institute.

“I hope to share my life experience and research as a speaker and teacher and contribute to a unitary human caring and loving kindness,” he said.