Personal Reflection

Wide reaching, nurses significantly outnumbered physicians as providers of health care often having utmost vast reach remoteness to underserved communities. Having personally lived in one of the underserved communities in my hometown Western Africa before moving to the United States of America and my life calling to be a nurse from a young age with the deep desire to make a difference. I plan to contribute and continue to contribute immensely to the underserved communities by delivering quality health care to remote regions around the world. I do volunteer service at several clinics in the Atlanta area with many well-known Emory physicians that care for homeless and underserved populations, these volunteer experiences provide me with opportunities and fulfillment to develop added headship skill and experience to meet my daily patients, needs.

I feel so proud and yet so humbled to be a nurse. Helping a post-operative surgical patient regain the strength to walk brings me immense satisfaction. Collaborating with physicians to advocate on behalf of unstable patients makes me feel like a valued part of a team. Consoling tearful, discouraged patients can be gut-wrenching, but it teaches me the power of empathy. Making a real, tangible difference in my patients’ lives is what drives me toward this next phase in my career.

Not only do I have a good understanding of the patient population I want to work with, I want to help reshape healthcare. I particularly want to improve the access of primary care to medically underserved populations. Everyone deserves equal access to healthcare and there should be no disparity in the quality of care provided. Therefore, each additional encounter I had with a PA or a patient has elevated my passion for helping people in need.

Serving individuals in underserved communities takes more than just intellect, it takes character. Filling your brain with the knowledge of various medications is not enough; rather one must empty oneself and become a vessel for compassion. It takes more than a steady hand, but a steadfast heart and a devotion to ethics and the integrity to align with them even when no one is watching. It takes empathy, it takes virtue, and last it takes a passion for cultivating caring and watching it bloom. Contributing to the Nurse Corps mission while nurturing for individuals in underserved communities, I will use these principles as my guiding light in attending to the visible and invisible needs of every patient I serve.

Living is a gift. Many people in the world are simply alive, but living is rare. There are people that are too sick to enjoy life, the disease that has manifested in the body slowly takes over the mind and rids the mind of joy and radiance. The glow of life slowly diminishes before our eyes and it is truly heart breaking. This person is not just a disease that happens to be hosted in a human. This is a human that happens to have a disease. This person is someone’s parent, someone’s child, someone’s sibling, and someone’s grandparent. This person has memories, hobbies, and loved ones. This person is your patient. Making a difference in just one person’s life is an incredible feat. Being a physician assistant would be making a difference in many

My personal experience gives me emotional strength and purpose to serve the vulnerable sections of society through pediatric health care. Growing up in a remote town in

During the first three years I will work as a nurse practitioner in an urgent care/occupational health care setting serving individuals living in low socioeconomic areas. Providing urgent care treatment in an underserved community is important to me, as these communities are in dire need of healthcare providers who speak their language and understand their culture. I hope to make a difference in these communities by encouraging prevention. In order to be worthy of serving this population, I will need to partner with a practice that will take me under their wing and help me reach my highest professional development potential.

It was dark and there were so many noises around me as I slowly woke up and recalled I was in a hospital with abdominal pain. I then heard a familiar voice say “Sweetie, wake up! Wake up!” I opened my eyes to a blurry image of my mother. “Shhh… don't make any noises. We're leaving now. Just act like you are fine. We'll try to sneak out before anyone notices”, my mother said. She explained later that she could not afford to pay hospital bills, so we had to leave before any physician checked over. Living in Vietnam, I was filled with resentment towards their healthcare system, as people were rejected treatment and left to perish in the streets. As a child, I therefore never considered medicine as a career. My spark for medicine was unforeseen until I went on a high school field trip at INOVA Fairfax Hospital in Virginia. Hovering over the glass ceiling of the operating theater, I watched doctors performing coronary bypass surgery while witnessing the heart beat stronger and stronger. At this magical moment, I was overwhelmed by the power of medicine to save people’s lives.

As a recipient of this scholarship, I would like to contribute to the mission of the NHSC by providing an environment where patients feel that they are welcomed, a priority, and receiving high quality healthcare. This is important because the large patient demands found in clinics in underserved areas create an environment where patients receive less face-to-face time with their doctors, provided they get seen at all. Because I have the work ethic and compassion to make a difference in underserved areas, I believe that I would be a helpful addition to any clinic. Bringing caring healthcare professionals into communities will allow more patients to receive quality care as well as impact these areas by allowing everyone to live healthier, more

Through these volunteering efforts alongside medically underserved individuals I gained experience as well as a better sense of cultural competence and compassion that has gradually helped me learn the capacity to understand other people’s experiences and sufferings in a way I never had before. Furthermore, by specifically working in family and free health clinics, I have had the opportunity to gain perspective to the present health disparities of minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals. I have witnessed how a lack of insurance, monetary income, or health education can affect one’s decision to attain primary health care. Seeing their medically related hardships increase has only challenged me to contribute my unwavering efforts to pursue the Biomedical Sciences MS degree and become a compassionate, culturally competent, and respectful type of physician who thinks logically and rationally when striving to help people in their greatest time of need, instead of focusing on their

My talents and experiences have prepared me to support the Metropolitan State University School of Nursing mission and prepared me for graduate education. I currently work in healthcare as a certified pharmacy technician and work with diverse and underserved population daily. Unfortunately, I can see how communication barriers, access to health care, physical barriers, and monetary barriers can prevent individuals from living up to their full health potential. I have had patients call our pharmacy to tell us they are unable to pick up their medications due to a lack of transportation access and an inability to pay for their medications. I have also had patients who are unable to take their medications regularly also due finances and an inability to read or understand the directions of their medications.

I gave everything that if care and love alone could save life, my aunty would still be alive today. Spending time with my aunty at the hospital bed motivated me to seek for a professional career in healthcare and be part of the amazing team of Doctors, Nurses and other medical staff in their quest to saving lives. The death of my aunty made me resolve not just to be a casual fellow sympathetic to the health challenges of people but to acquire the requisite profession skills needed to save lives. Over the years, I have gained an in-depth knowledge

As a future alumna, I will advance the mission of Mercy College by delivering health care services as a PA to under-served urban populations with compassion and sensitivity. Being raised in an under-served community and being a premed student in Harlem, NY, I understand the challenges of being a healthcare professional in the United States. In addition, being in a diverse environment have augmented my studies in public health, and have provided me with concrete examples of how individuals can benefit from caring, sensitive providers, and how communities suffer when adequate health care services are not available or affordable. I believe as a future student at Mercy College, I will be fortunate enough to learn about the social responsibility

Between my time volunteering at an organic produce farm, volunteering at an equine therapy program for children with disabilities, and traveling to the Dominican Republic to treat those in need, I have seen the value of investing in both the individual and the community. Those in healthcare so often forget that healing is not something done solely upon the body. Rather, healing extends from the patient into their homes and their environment.

As I began looking for a seat on the crowded bus, filled with individuals in bright red shirts my hands shook and I stared down an aisle of opportunities with my eyes wide. I asked myself, how I could be a friend to individuals, whom at first glance may seem very different from me. Most importantly, I asked how I can help. The moment I asked myself this question, my life was forever changed. I knew this was going to be a big day for me, but I had no idea that a Saturday that seemed otherwise unordinary would be the first day of the rest of my life. This Saturday was my first day volunteering with Camp A.N.C.H.O.R. (Assisting the Needs of Citizens with Handicaps through Organized Recreation). The persons I worked with during my time at A.N.C.H.O.R. led me to understand many of the issues people with many different types of disabilities face every single day. I heard about some of the problems my favorite campers were dealing with and I was furious. So, I took that anger and turned it into a passion for change. That passion has since sent me on a journey exploring social justice issues. During this time I realized that through the law I can help people from all walks of life and fight discriminatory practices that leave many groups underrepresented.