"What Kind of a Nurse Do You Want to be?"

A compassionate, authentic, genuine, and holistic nurse.

That is the kind of nurse I want to be.

When I first started nursing school and people would ask me this question, I'd think about a certain area of nursing. I would think Emergency, ICU, Wound Care, NICU, etc. But then I realized the unit you work on does not define what kind of a nurse you would be. The kind of a nurse you would be will be defined by your character.

When a family member or a friend goes to a hospital, they come back saying, "Gosh, that was a terrible nurse," or "Wow, that nurse made my stay much more comfortable than I would have expected." They do not come back and say, "Oh yeah, the nurse was a med-surg nurse."

If I were to answer this question based off of the specialties I would like to explore, people would be lost. I want to start off as an Oncology Nurse, then as a Research Nurse, then become a Peace Corps Nurse, then earn my Master's, and then my Doctorate, and then become an educator. But what if within my plan, I suddenly become an OR Nurse, instead? Or a Labor and Delivery Nurse? Then people would be confused and ask, "Oh, but I thought you wanted to be an Oncology Nurse."

However, if I answer with the qualities that I would like to portray as a nurse, and say, "I want to be a compassionate, authentic, genuine, and holistic nurse," then it does not matter which specialty I end up pursuing. No matter what hospital I'm working for, what unit I'm in, or how old I am - I will still be able to be the kind of a nurse I say I want to be.

My point is that, when you think about what kind of a nurse you want to be after nursing school, or what kind of a nurse you may want as a patient someday, focus on the character of your nurse.

I want to be a nurse who is efficient, safe, innovative, and driven. I want to remember that I want to be a nurse with a heart because all nurses are smart, but which ones actually continue to have the genuinely caring heart that they had when they first started nursing school?

I want to remember why I am even pursuing to be a nurse. I want to remember that this is my way to contribute to my society. I want to remember that my brain is for me to use in both research and clinical settings, and that my heart is for me to use to connect with my patients at their most vulnerable time.

The Lord has provided me with a fully functioning brain with a heart that's so big I don't know what to do with it. I want to remember that I want to use these gifts to serve others.

I want to be the kind of a nurse that doesn't think lowly or highly of myself. I don't want to put myself down and say, "well, I'm just a nurse," but I also don't want to put myself so high up a pedestal and say, "well, I save lives everyday; what do you do?"

Instead, I want to say, "I'm a nurse. I embody what it means to be a nurse. I care, I serve, and I provide all the care that I can."

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