Nursing Essay
I have spent the last five years realizing that the healthcare community needs a dedicated staff that are not just working for a pay check. My college career began on a one way track to medical school but a couple of years in I realized being the doctor was not all it was cracked up to be. I found that most of the time doctors had little interaction time with the patient and that the day in and day out work was left up to the nursing staff. As I spent hours in the hospital doing what I thought was shadowing doctors, I soon realized that I was actually shadowing the nurses. These hours redirected my one-way path to medical school onto a slightly different path to nursing school.
Biology has opened my eyes to the world around me in an entirely new light. It has made me look at life systematically and question the things around me. My BS in Biology was my first educational goal but it was never my only goal. Throughout the last five years I have longed to learn about the body and all that it encompasses. Becoming a registered nurse is only the first step in a bigger plan for me.
Since before I can remember I have been passionate about serving people, so when it came time to decide on a career path I wanted something that would marry my passion for serving with my desire to work. Healthcare was the answer. Initially I did not know to what degree this would be, but as the years have unfolded I have found myself longing for more and more healthcare education. Although I have enjoyed my time as biology major, I am inspired to learn about medicine. When I’m in the hospital, or working at Dr. Garnto’s office, I am like a sponge just longing for someone to drop even an ounce of knowledge on me that I can soak in. Education brings knowledge, and knowledge brings quality service.
I have had the great honor of working alongside two nurse practitioners at the Compassionate Care Clinic in Milledgeville, GA. This clinic is a nurse-conceived, nurse-led primary indigent healthcare clinic funded by the Georgia Baptist Health Care Ministry Foundation. These nurse practitioners have instilled in me the desire to achieve more and to raise the bar high. They have allowed me to talk through patient’s primary complaints to begin to determine diagnosis and plan of action, teaching me how to think like a provider. Through formal training by a phlebotomist I have acquired the skill sets necessary to draw blood on patients of all ages, varying in body habitus. Also through time spent working with these nurse practitioners I have been able to dip my hands into the vast world of pharmacology. We have discussed the pros and cons of differing blood pressure, insulin, cholesterol, and psychiatric medications determining which is best for the individual patient allowing my pharmaceutical knowledge to grow. All of these individual things draw me into the field of nursing and even more so inspire me to go beyond registered nurse to nurse practitioner.
Working at the Compassionate Care Clinic has rekindled my desire to serve the underprivileged, especially those in third world countries. I have been around the world and back serving the Lord in all capacities but medicine is my link from the physical to the spiritual. Medicine opens up opportunities to enter people’s lives in a truly honest capacity; relating their need for physical healing to the spiritual and physical healing of the Great Physician, Jesus Christ. Mountains Beyond Mountains is a book that portrays the life of Paul Farmer, M.D. In this book the author describes how Dr. Farmer spends four months a year as a professor at Harvard medical school and the rest of the time in Haiti working around the clock at Zanme Lasante, a healthcare system serving over 100,000 in its catchment area. Dr. Farmer inspires me to take hold of my love and call for missions and go to any extreme to see it come to fruition. Nursing school is the first step in achieving my ultimate goal of bringing healthcare to those without.
I have spent the last five years realizing that the healthcare community needs a dedicated staff that are not just working for a pay check. My college career began on a one way track to medical school but a couple of years in I realized being the doctor was not all it was cracked up to be. I found that most of the time doctors had little interaction time with the patient and that the day in and day out work was left up to the nursing staff. As I spent hours in the hospital doing what I thought was shadowing doctors, I soon realized that I was actually shadowing the nurses. These hours redirected my one-way path to medical school onto a slightly different path to nursing school.
Biology has opened my eyes to the world around me in an entirely new light. It has made me look at life systematically and question the things around me. My BS in Biology was my first educational goal but it was never my only goal. Throughout the last five years I have longed to learn about the body and all that it encompasses. Becoming a registered nurse is only the first step in a bigger plan for me.
Since before I can remember I have been passionate about serving people, so when it came time to decide on a career path I wanted something that would marry my passion for serving with my desire to work. Healthcare was the answer. Initially I did not know to what degree this would be, but as the years have unfolded I have found myself longing for more and more healthcare education. Although I have enjoyed my time as biology major, I am inspired to learn about medicine. When I’m in the hospital, or working at Dr. Garnto’s office, I am like a sponge just longing for someone to drop even an ounce of knowledge on me that I can soak in. Education brings knowledge, and knowledge brings quality service.
I have had the great honor of working alongside two nurse practitioners at the Compassionate Care Clinic in Milledgeville, GA. This clinic is a nurse-conceived, nurse-led primary indigent healthcare clinic funded by the Georgia Baptist Health Care Ministry Foundation. These nurse practitioners have instilled in me the desire to achieve more and to raise the bar high. They have allowed me to talk through patient’s primary complaints to begin to determine diagnosis and plan of action, teaching me how to think like a provider. Through formal training by a phlebotomist I have acquired the skill sets necessary to draw blood on patients of all ages, varying in body habitus. Also through time spent working with these nurse practitioners I have been able to dip my hands into the vast world of pharmacology. We have discussed the pros and cons of differing blood pressure, insulin, cholesterol, and psychiatric medications determining which is best for the individual patient allowing my pharmaceutical knowledge to grow. All of these individual things draw me into the field of nursing and even more so inspire me to go beyond registered nurse to nurse practitioner.
Working at the Compassionate Care Clinic has rekindled my desire to serve the underprivileged, especially those in third world countries. I have been around the world and back serving the Lord in all capacities but medicine is my link from the physical to the spiritual. Medicine opens up opportunities to enter people’s lives in a truly honest capacity; relating their need for physical healing to the spiritual and physical healing of the Great Physician, Jesus Christ. Mountains Beyond Mountains is a book that portrays the life of Paul Farmer, M.D. In this book the author describes how Dr. Farmer spends four months a year as a professor at Harvard medical school and the rest of the time in Haiti working around the clock at Zanme Lasante, a healthcare system serving over 100,000 in its catchment area. Dr. Farmer inspires me to take hold of my love and call for missions and go to any extreme to see it come to fruition. Nursing school is the first step in achieving my ultimate goal of bringing healthcare to those without.
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