PROVO, Utah – Emily Vidmar Day was a standout athlete on the BYU women's gymnastics team and now uses her talents at Primary Children's Hospital.
Then: Emily Vidmar the gymnast
As the daughter of an Olympian, Day was destined to compete. She was a four-year athlete at BYU from 2013-16. As a freshman and sophomore, she competed in the NCAA Regionals. Her freshman year she competed on the beam and then added bars and floor to her events the following three years. In her senior year, she set career highs in all three events: bars (9.850), beam (9.875) and floor (9.900).
“One of the best things about my time at BYU was having the team," Day said. "Your teammates and coaches are your family by the end of the year. The relationships that I made are probably still what I took the most from it. We had a lot of fun times.”
Day was also named to the Mountain Rim Gymnastics Conference All-Academic Team in 2016 as she was preparing to graduate from BYU with a bachelor's in exercise science and pursue a career in the nursing field.
“I always wanted to do something in the healthcare field," Day said. "I originally wanted to go to physician's assistant school, but when I got to BYU I was thinking of starting in nursing. But nursing and gymnastics were impossible together. I decided to do exercise science because it involved a lot of different health prerequisites and had all of the science classes I was interested in."
Now: Emily Vidmar Day the registered nurse
After marrying Hamilton Day in April 2016, Day began the journey to her career at Primary Children's Hospital. She was grateful to be accepted to the University of Utah. It was there that she began the accelerated registered nursing program and graduated in December 2017.
In January 2018, Day began her job at Primary Children's Hospital as a registered nurse in the pediatric and cardiac intensive care units. She works full-time, which entails working a 12-hour shift three days a week and may include days or nights and weekends or holidays.
Day has learned that being a gymnast and attending BYU prepared her to be in the healthcare environment know that nursing is the career she needed to be in.
"When I was competing on beam, I had all this pressure to do things and all these emotions," Day said. "You have to be able to handle those emotions and put them in the right direction. I get that a lot, especially working in my unit with really sick kids. Sometimes they can go south, and you have to do things under pressure and make sure you are doing the right things and quickly. I think being able to control my emotions and the pressure has really helped me be a successful nurse."
"Also, the thing I love most is doing the little things that make one person's day better," Day added. "I learned in gymnastics that focusing on the little details matter, and they matter just as much in the nursing world.”
When not at the hospital, she enjoys staying involved in gymnastics. Day coaches tumbling one day a week at Tumbletek in Draper, Utah, and tries to substitute for other classes whenever she is needed and available.
After her time at BYU, Day would give the following advice to any incoming freshmen on the gymnastics team:
“Every year gets better, at least that’s how it was for me. Freshman year was harder to connect with some of the people and trying to gain respect as an athlete. I would say to definitely work as hard as you can and to know that every year is going to be more fun. Freshman year was amazing and somehow every year kept getting better.”