Personal Narrative: Becoming A Nurse

For my Project Life presentation, I chose to do mine on a registered nurse. The reason I chose to do mine on a registered nurse is because I love to help people. When I help people, it gives me a great feeling. A registered nurse is a nurse who has graduated from a college's nursing program or from a school of nursing and has passed a national licensing exam. In order to be a registered nurse you must have either your associates or bachelors degree. You can get a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), if you want to advance in the profession. You can also get a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), it may lead to advances such as: Clinical Nurse Specialist, Anesthetist Nurse, Mid-wife Nurse, or a Nurse Practitioner.

In order to reach one’s goal, the goal should be well defined, firm and the individual must be completely committed to attaining it. Pursuing a career as a Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner has always been my driving goal throughout all my education and training since the age of seventeen. Over the past three years working within a Surgical Inpatient unit as a Registered Nurse, I have become aware of the lack of community resources and access to health care available in rural areas. This has inspired me apply to the University of Western Ontario’s Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner program for the fall of 2014. After completing my Bachelor of Science of Nursing at the University of Western Ontario, I am certain that no other

Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, once said, “I attribute my success to this:—I never gave or took an excuse.” That is an outlook on life I try to live up to. I have had a few set backs in my college career to keep me from achieving my goal of becoming a Registered Nurse. I could have easily given up on my dream but I took those hardships and turned them into fuel to keep going. My father suffered a massive heart attack and went into cardiac arrest when I first started college. It completely flipped by life upside down. I spent weeks at a time in the hospital with him. Seeing him go in and out the hospital for years reaffirmed my need to become a nurse and help others like how those nurses took care of my father. Once I

We live in a world where the human race seems to be disconnected. Nowadays it feels that there are not enough people helping each other. I don’t treat life like a competition I look at it and I ask myself how may I help? What may I do to make this world a more suitable place for all to live a comfortable and peaceful life? I yearn to come forward and fulfill my role and contribute to our society in any way possible. Nursing is my calling for helping others. It sounds cliché, this I know, but it’s what I desire and what I decided to do with my body, mind, and soul.

As a Nurse Educator, one of my duties is to take students to Truman for clinical experiences. During assessments and problem solving, I noticed most of the senior students couldn’t critical think or problem solve. Research was completed on best practices for problem solving in nursing. As an instructor I begin to utilize the Problem-Based Learning Method in regards to enhancing and improving critical thinking and problem solving skills. Evidence shows that more students suffer with clinical decision making due to lack of critical thinking and problem-solving (Hamdan, Li Kwan, Khan, Ghafar, & Sihes, 2014). The process was first experimented on my own group of nursing students during our clinical days. The steps involved consist of the follow:

As I had posted in Workshop One, my son’s accident led me to think about the area of nursing. In the 1980’s, I was still working in the area of retail management, and pursuing a business degree on a part-time basis, when another life-altering event occurred. Having experienced seven miscarriages over the years, I feel each of my children is here for a reason. I was told that I would not be able to have another child after complications during the birth of my oldest son. I was out of town when I began to experience terrible stomach pain we decided to cut our trip short and

I’ve never imagined myself actually taking a CNA class as a junior in high school. Since elementary I always said I wanted to become a doctor, and after maturing and researching how long it would take, I changed my mind. So therefore I set my goal to either become a Registered Nurse or Nurse Practitioner. When I found out I met the credentials for this class, I went for it and encouraged my fellow friends to join as well.

Growing up in a remote village in West Africa (Sierra Leone), I remember how perplexed I was on my first day of school and the months following. Waking up early in the morning and walking several miles to school was not a pleasant thing anybody would love doing. Thanks to my middle-school teacher, Mr. Smith, a peace cop from the United States; he influenced me immensely on the importance of education. He used to tell me stories of his past experiences and other successful people about their struggles in life, which I believe served as a motivating factor for me to be where I am now in life.

It took all that I had not to empty my stomach onto the floor right then and there. I knew what I was getting into, volunteering to be a nurse in this war. I knew all the hardships a nurse could face. I knew I had the possibility of seeing friends and family members in the hospital tents. What I didn’t know was how much I would see the first day. I’m not a squeamish person, but then again, I’ve never been around this much of the crimson liquid that flows through our veins. I’ve also never been around this many people. It was a wonder that all these tents could fit up to one thousand beds. It was even more tragic that all of the beds were filled every day.

I always have a hard time when it comes to writing about myself, simply because I don’t want to seem conceited. Anyhow, the first thing I like about myself is that I am selfless and caring. I go out of my way to do what I can to make people feel comfortable, and help them out in any way possible. It is important to spread kindness and have a good heart, you never know what somebody might be going through. For some reason, I feel like I was born to help people, which is why I chose the career field of nursing. Secondly, my attitude would be another thing I like about myself. No matter what has gone on in my life, of tried to push me down, I always keep a positive mindset and attitude, and get right back up. Life gets tough, and if you have a

When I was a freshman in high school, I unfortunately had to deal with the suicide of a family member. Prior to his untimely death, I had no idea what I wanted in the future. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was always met with “I’m not really sure yet”. This suddenly changed after his death. I began to think, after you die, what is left behind? What was his legacy? I knew I wanted to leave something behind and create my own legacy. I knew I wanted a career which focused on helping others, something that would have a major impact on people even after I was gone. So I decided to pursue nursing. I knew in my heart I needed to continue with my life and focus on bettering myself and those around me. I could not linger on the past anymore.

Mainly I have worked as a dental nurse, but previously I have worked as a school cleaner and as a cafeteria worker in a factory. I have accumulated many transferable skills ideal for this job. For instance I used to volunteer at my daughter's school when she was young, helping the children with their studies. Therefore, this provides me with the necessary experience of being able to help others effectively. Furthermore, I have had employment in various office settings. This gives me the technical knowledge to effectively manage records because as a dental nurse I have to maintain patient records and appointments.

My drive to become a children's nurse has been fired by the journey that my younger sister has gone

Currently I am the nurse care manager for the renal department. I work along aside with the nephrologist providing care to veterans whose health are compromised by kidney disease or failure. Large amount of veterans seen in this unit have complex medical issues. I serve as a liaison between the physician, patients, and their families on a daily basis that includes making numerous phone calls between the units, outside of the VA, outside dialysis units, hospitals, and the patient’s home. Day-to-day the nephrologist review labs, then placed notes in the CPRS system, and sent to the nurse (as an additional signer) to call that veterans with the information provided. As the only nurse in renal, I not only communicate lab results, veterans are

It was a pleasure seeing you this past weekend. I am sorry that I wasn’t able to stop and have a proper chat with you though, so I wanted to get in touch.