Cancer patient seeks out nursing student who offered him care

(May 15, 2013) A scratchy throat drove Russell Owings, of Arrington, Va., to his primary care physician last September. And if esophageal cancer was the last thing he imagined, he was equally unprepared for the toll of 34 radiation treatments and two rounds of chemotherapy.

By November, the avid outdoorsman, just 53, had collapsed and was rushed to the University of Virginia Medical Center where he was told he'd need a feeding tube. That’s where he met Olivia Calzada, a University of Virginia nursing student on her oncology rotation. It was a meeting neither would forget. >>