Personal Narrative: My Experience As A Nurse

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

In this article a young, certified nursing assistant failed to follow the guidelines in properly transporting the resident into her bed. Sadly, the resident ended up falling and receiving bruises, and black eyes due to the negligence of the nursing assistant. Rather than getting the resident help right away she asked a coworker to lie for her and say she had helped her, in order to keep her out of trouble. The co-worker didn’t follow through with the lie and the nursing assistant ended up losing her job and is facing charges of a class e felony, and a misdemeanor, also losing her certification. Griffith, G. (2015, June 3rd) Nursing home aide arrested, arraigned for allegedly neglecting elderly resident.

I was recently fortunate enough to speak with Carri Montgomery, who lists her title as the Director of the Women’s and Newborn Center for Platte Valley SCL Health. Platte valley use to be community owed and they recently joined Sister’s of Charity which includes; Good Samaritan, Lutheran, and Saint Joseph Hospital. The purpose of this interview was to interview someone where I could see myself working in what they are doing later in my career. With this interview I hoped to learn what it took for Ms. Montgomery to be in the position she is today. Also, get advice from her to see what where the things she recommended I could do when I graduate from Metropolitan State University (MSU) in 2019. It was beneficial to interview her

I interviewed Beverly Stark. She works for Health Partners Hospice and Palliative Care as a hospice registered nurse (RN). The setting of her work varies. It is wherever her patient lives, which can range from a hospital, long term care, or in the patient’s home. She emphasized the importance of her team. She works with nurses, social workers, home health aids, chaplains, doctors, and hospice volunteers on a daily basis. She is part of what they call a core group. Each core group is made up of two RNs, one social worker, and a home health aid (HHA). The core group meets once a week to talk and update each other on their caseload. Additionally, they meet with the chaplain and a doctor weekly (B. Stark, personal communication, Sept 9, 2016).

The medical occupation such as doctor or physician assistance (PA) is a respectable career, but certainly not an easy job. It is a pressure cooker dealing with difficult patients’ demands, filling out mundane paperwork, and making numerous phone calls to the insurance company. Additionally, they must maintain the patient quota and satisfaction scores mandated by the workplace as well as adhere to the ever-changing, complex healthcare law and regulations. However, these adversities do not deter me from my aspiration to become a PA. I want to belong to a team of talented, selfless, and dedicated people that fight for patient’s lives on a daily basis. I long to have the opportunity to spend quality time with my patients and ease their concerns. Helping people getting better and the community getting healthier is my ultimate goal for becoming a PA.

When working as a health unit coordinator some of my my duties is to transcribe doctor orders, process doctor orders, make appointments for clients, order supplies as needed. When I am working as a nursing assistant my job requires me to bathe and dress patients, take vital signs, serve meals, set up medical equipment, answer call lights as needed, observe changes in clients

It was a Wednesday night and my mother had left for her job at Manor Care again. The house felt hollow, mimicking my state of mind. I was lonely and could not find anything to occupy my time. I did not have any siblings and I was left all by myself in our home. Before she left, my mother said to me, “Najee, this is only temporary until I become a Registered Nurse.” Although I was happy that my mother wanted to pursue her career dreams, for me, the nights by myself filled me with an unparalleled void. I had this lingering feeling that I was locked in a bubble, insulating me from the outside world. A once happy boy had turned into a sad child; I had lost my joie de vivre. I no longer had any positive emotions towards anyone or anything. As a result, my grades began to slip and my once stellar academic record turned into something that I knew was not reflective of the type of student I was.

I'd like to share an example from my personal experience that illustrates nursing as an art. While working as a nursing assistant there was a patient who had just been newly admitted into the nursing home. This was his first time being a resident in a rehabilitation facility so he was very hesitant and scared. During his first day, he refused to let me take his vital signs. However, I noticed the uneasy look on his face and decided to talk to him further and discuss his fears. He explained to me that he'd gotten his blood drawn several times that day and didn't want to be stuck anymore. After getting an understanding of how he felt I was able to address his concerns and explain that there no needles involved in obtaining his vital signs.

In five years my life will be completely different than it is now. I'll be around twenty three years old just starting my job as an RN nurse probably in the emergency department, hopefully for the kids. To get here, though I would need my bachelors in science and nursing not an associate since, associate degrees aren't as common in nursing anymore then like they are used to be. The jobs along the way will not be fun for the first couple years is going to be nothing but pushing dead bodies around, probably butt wiping people who can't anymore, and from my dad caring body parts that fell off from whatever. I'll hate most of it, but to get where I want i will endure all of the pain and suck it up because I am going to one day be a pediatrician.

I actually have a similar experience like you. I have a patient during my first semester that she was constantly in nervous/panic mood and always talk about how she wants to go home. I remembered the previous shift nurse and the nurse I followed have the same expressions and saying how the patient was just missing her alcohol (they were thinking she is alcoholic even though her medical record did not indicate she was a drinker). Anyway because we were taught to be non-judgmental on our patient, I decided to talk to the patient about why she was panic and wanted to go home. It ends up the patient is not alcoholic but she just don’t like to be in the hospital and constantly thinking about she may not be about to go home after all. I think many

Initially I was very apprehensive in sharing the truth behind what ultimately made me decide to return to school to become a nurse. This would entail reliving both joyful and painful memories of my life which I believe to have mapped out the path that I was meant to follow. I was a young, stay at home mom for many years. being the full time primary care giver to my three children was the most rewarding experience of my life. reflecting back I have found remarkable similarities in the traits and skills of mothers and nurses. many of these characteristics are utilized by nurses with each and every patient they encounter . These include but are not limited to compassion , empathy, prioritization, dedication, understanding nonverbal communication.

Before entering the Lehman College Nursing program., my motives for becoming a nurse wasn’t always been as set in place as they are now. Knowing full well that my decision to enter the nursing field was one I was not entirely certain of, I decided to embark on the journey nonetheless. During my first year of study at Lehman College I was kept very busy trying to juggle all of my courses and at the same time decide if this was indeed the program for me. When I entered the Lehman College nursing program, after getting to know my teachers, their expectations of me, as well as starting into the clinical experience, I discovered that I seemed to fit in very well into the program. Not only was I doing well in the academic aspect of the nursing program

It was a little scary how fast you adjusted to Ben being in the infirmary full time, and how comfortable you were there. You had come to find the usual bustle of the nurses and patients didn’t really bother you anymore. It was almost like adjusting to a new home, where each creak in the floorboards underfoot feels wrong and foreign, but after a few weeks you don’t even notice it anymore. Even Madam Kalonia began to warm up to you, and it sure was nice to see her harsh frown lines become soft.

My decision to be a nurse started unknowingly when I was a child. My earliest memories of my mother involve her poor health and me being her caretaker. She was sick my whole life with mental health issues and Lupus. I was never sure how my mom was going to feel day to day. I loved my mother, but as her health declined, her depression was getting worse and this lead to a pretty miserable childhood. I remember some of the worst moments as a teenager were talking my mom out of killing herself or trying to wake her up after taking too many pills. My mom passes away when I was in LVN school I knew my life experience and pain would be the key to my nursing career. I now work in mental health and can’t wait to get my RN to help more people and families.