Personal Narrative: A Career In Nursing

I was never a kid that knew who I would become when I grow up. My interests ranged from wanting to become an interior designer to having a strong desire of becoming a pilot. I was often surrounded by healthcare professionals but I never imagined myself striving to become one. Little did I know that I would end up at a stage in my life where I would be sure about pursuing a career in healthcare. Although I have decided on my career path, I have yet to discover a particular field within healthcare that grabs my interest. The RA Internship will help me learn more about medicine and help me find a right field of study through clinical research experience and monthly lectures offered to me as an intern. Though this opportunity I will be able to

head had crowned and the doctor looked down at me and asked me a shocking question. “Kodi,

I’ve been through a lot of changes throughout these years. My hair has changed from curly to straight and it’s color has changed multiple times, I have got braces and teeth have gotten straighter. I have gotten more mature over the years and my body has grown. What I want to do in the future has changed too. When I was younger I wanted to be a doctor. Then I wanted to work with animals, and wanted to go into the army. Now I’m set on becoming a nurse. I am going to be going to college for this. I will learn everything I need to know about being a nurse, get whatever degrees I need to get, and just go from there to become a nurse.

The first obstacle that I have chosen in the call to adventure. Odysseus is called to fight the battle of troy but has trouble dealing with the fact that he has to leave his wife and his newborn son. I relate to this because I will soon be graduating high school and moving to Pennsylvania to pursue the rest of my education (college – bachelors, masters). I know that I want to pursue a career in the medical field but in order to accomplish that goal, I have to leave. I know that this is where I need to go and I know that this is the best option for me, but I do not want to leave my home, my family, my ordinary world. I struggle dealing with the fact that I will be living half way across the country and living on my own without the safety net

After graduating High School in 1975, I married and moved to Mississippi. There used my skills from gymnastics and assisted teaching for three months. Assisted with teaching children from the ages of six to ten years old.

Going to the hospital two times was not enough for me so I ended up going to the hospital two more times and for almost the same injuries. I broke my collar bone again in the same place a year later and then a year from that I had to get stiches in the back of my head. The stiches happened because my sister’s friend decided to give me a piggy back ride. He ended up falling near a corner in the wall so his head bounced back and hit mine making me hit my head into the corner. So my mom had to French braid my hair to keep the cut together to slow down the bleeding and later got five stiches in the back of my head. In school I was always an average student and took me a lot longer to grasp concepts compared to my other friends. They would pull my into a separate class just to work on reading, also had a tutor at home for my reading and writing.

I was about to fall asleep on my office’s desk drained from the procedure my colleagues and I did for the past 6 hours. My assistant walked into the office which reminded me that i am still working at the hospital. “I need my bed”, says the inner me overwork and irritated. I was thinking and then remembered the procedure. The intense and fast-paced environment still made my heart skip. The voices of my colleagues all talking at the same time, in addition to that, keeping up with the beeping of the ECG monitor made my palms sweat. The fear of losing your patient when you look into the eyes of the family and loved ones. Oh, the frustration! Then again the minute the beep goes back, comes the paralyzing feeling. It’s overwhelming, exciting and emotional all at the same time. I saved a person’s life. I saved a family from sorrow. Oh the fulfillment!

As you grow older you realize that you will never learn nothing that should taken for granted. Is all valuable.

“Do you know what you want to do when you graduate high school?” My dad asked, “No” I replied, “well it’s about time you start thinking about a career”. I was asked this when I was 13, I had no idea, how am I supposed to know exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life at just 13 years old? How does anyone know exactly what they want to be? This question stumped me for several years, I had absolutely no idea, and it wasn’t until 3 years later that finally got an idea. I discovered it one day while listening to my favorite band, I wanted to make music, I wanted to watch the crowd go ballistic while I sang on stage, I wanted to mean something. It occurred to me that I was already decent singer, I just need practice, and a band, and a

My first professional experience in the health care field was my internship at University of Pennsylvania Department of Urogynecology. While I was working, I had opportunities to observe while I was able to shadow Dr. Arya in the urogynecology department to surgeries and clinic days. During my shadowing, I was able to observe how to approach patients, how to take their history, and how to support them while making difficult decisions and I am confident that I will take these observations with me while studying and practicing medicine. Moreover, I saw that sometimes your patients might be scared of what they see on television and refuse treatments out of fear. However, my mentor, Dr. Arya showed that best way to clear the doubts of one’s patients

April 29, 2015 is the day I decided to trade my labcoat dreams for a dream with a gown and a stage. In the first 17 years of my life, I never considered to pursue a career in music, let alone opera. I had this mindset that immigrants go to the U.S. to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, but never artists, dancers, or musicians. It was a privileged dream. I was granted the privilege of taking piano lessons since my parents saw its disciplinary benefits. As I was participating in my school choir and in church choir, my piano teacher, Miss Noto, suggested that I take voice lessons as well. I did not find myself a particularly talented singer until I was the only one in my county to be accepted into the All National Honor Choir. In my last music festival, my adjudicator asked me which conservatories I applied to and I told her zero because I was going to be an Otolaryngologist. Miss Noto, who was my accompanist at the time, later told me how surprised she was that I was not going to pursue music after high school. I never imagined that one’s hobbies could translate to a career. Then I thought, why not?

Through my experiences I have found nursing is a career based on compassion. Nurses care for those in need, no matter what stage of life the person being cared for is in. Being a nurse means caring for others who are often sick and sometimes dying. Hours are long, and the job is not for the faint of heart; no pun intended. Nurses have a variety of jobs in many different settings, from hospitals to doctors' offices, and even nursing homes. These are just a few places where nurses provide care. There are so many opportunities for someone in nursing, but the nursing field is primarily focused on healing. I have been exposed to the nursing profession all my life, but I never really understood what nurses do until I became a volunteer for

In my third year complex care clinical placement, I continuously involved in an environment that require time management and critical thinking skills. I allocated to care one to two patients postoperative or one patient if unconscious post-surgery. With not enough RN in the recovery area to supervise me especially when more than four patient in the recovery area that requires one on one care, I initiatively present myself for availability according to my scope of practice like for example, I can do paper work with RNs initial afterward and care for minor surgery or procedure patients in caring for their safety or removal of airway management. I always asked questions or clarifications with my preceptor if unsure in preventing any errors that could compromise patient’s outcomes.

When thinking about the past 4 weeks in class I would say the expectation’s I came into the class with have been what I expected thus far. I did not come into Notes on Nursing with too many expectations, mainly because I wanted to have an open-minded about what the class could be about and the things I might learn. Yes, the class has met my goals I had set for the class That I had, along with that it helped me become more secure in my choice to be a nurse I was a little on edge in the beginning if nursing really was for me through the reading videos I have

Imagine you are a new mother or father. The pure joy and fear of this new adventure can be very overwhelming. Seeing that bright smile on your little ones face and the light in their eyes. Now picture the worst thing to ever happen. You go into you little bundle of joys room to check on them. You expect to see their chest moving up and down, but instead you see a blue limp form that is your baby. Fear overwhelms you. You cry out for help and call 911. The dispatcher on the other end of the phone tells you that help is on the way. You hope to hear sirens screaming into the night and you hope to hear it soon. You put your faith in those paramedics and that they will be at your home soon and to help your little one. Seconds seem like minutes. Hours seem like days. Finally you hear tires screeching, a police officer, who was right down the road came to see if he could help. Alas, most police officers are not trained in CPR and have no advanced medical knowledge. You plead with him, inquiring where the ambulance or fire truck is. He sadly informs you that the ambulance that usually responds to this area is tied up on another run. They would have been here before him, but they were taking care of a non-emergent problem. Someone wants to go to the hospital because their foot has been hurting for a week now, and they decided now was the time to go to the ER.