Pediatric nurse wins Deaflympic gold with U.S. Women’s Deaf National Soccer Team
Hearing impairment doesn’t stop nurse from realizing her dreams — or treating her patients
The past year has been an exciting one for Paige Beaudry, BSN, RN, a pediatric respiratory nurse at University of Iowa Health Care Stead Family Children’s Hospital.
She graduated from nursing school. Got engaged. Moved from Michigan to Iowa City to join the nursing staff at the children’s hospital.
And in December she won her second gold medal as part of the U.S. Women’s Deaf National Soccer Team at the Deaflympics in Tokyo.
“It was always my wish when I’d blow out my birthday candles to be an Olympic soccer player and to play for the United States,” Beaudry says.
For young Beaudry, who started playing soccer before entering kindergarten, the Olympic dream was just that — a dream. She was born hearing impaired and has worn hearing aids since she was a baby, and as a child and pre-teen she wasn’t sure there would be a place for her in the Olympics.
Then a teacher told her about the national deaf women’s team, and her life changed.
Following her dreams
Beaudry was 15 and in high school when she learned of the deaf women’s team; a teacher knew of her ambitions, and the teacher's sister was a member of the national team. Beaudry joined the team as a defender and was part of the squad when it won gold at both the 2022 Deaflympics in Brazil and the 2023 World Deaf Football Championships in Malaysia.
At the same time, she was attending high school and, later, nursing school.
“It was a lot to balance in college with nursing school and playing and traveling,” Beaudry recalls. “I was only able to work it out because my professors were able to work things around my schedule and help me move my clinicals around."
’Amazing’ coworkers
When Beaudry joined the UI Health Care pediatric nursing staff in July 2025, she was already planning to compete in Tokyo, and she credits the support of her new managers and colleagues for helping to make it happen.
“My managers were very willing to work with my schedule,” Beaudry says. “They were amazing; I was able to work a lot of extra time and pick up extra shifts to make up for the time I’d be gone.”
She says her nursing team “has been amazing” through everything.
“I couldn’t have asked for anything better than what I have here,” she says. “They were all super excited when I won, they have been super supportive through it all.”
Her young patients likely don’t know about her Deaflympic gold, or some of the specialized tools she uses as a nurse with a hearing impairment. She wears hearing aids in both ears and has a Bluetooth-enabled stethoscope that connects to her phone, which in turn sends the sounds to her hearing aids.
“Working on a respiratory unit, you’re constantly listening to how kids are breathing,” she says, “so it’s important that I can hear them.”
She also uses closed-captioning online or turns the volume up on her phone to hear someone on the other end.
“It’s all about adaptability and making it work the best way I can,” she says.
