“Could you take her blood pressure for me?” said the nurse as I approached the patient’s door. I grabbed my sphygmomanometer and quickly approached the bed. After the formal introduction, the patient gave me her arm and I began the process. I placed the sphygmomanometer around her arm and then lined up the diaphragm of the stethoscope with her brachial artery. Her systolic blood pressure was a little high, 128 mmHg; however, her diastolic blood pressure was normal, 82 mmHg. After giving the information back to the nurse, my clinical was over for the day. While this sounds like a typical situation in nursing school, it is actually my life in high school. Between my classes and volunteering positions, I spend twelve hours every week in a hospital
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Unlike many applicants who have dreamed of entering the medical field since leaving the uterus, my decision was more of a journey. I had many aspirations as a child. In second grade, I wanted to be a police officer. In third grade, I wanted to be an actor. In sixth grade, I wanted to be an architect. By ninth grade, nothing interested me anymore. My grandfather became gravely ill and hospitalized when I was in ninth grade. Visiting my grandfather was the first time I had entered a hospital since I was six years old and my father took me to meet my new baby sister. The hospital was an imposing building and yet I felt energized, not intimidated, by the setting. I witnessed my grandfather’s nurse interacting with him and the connection she had created in a brief period of time. As she left his room I noticed tears in her eyes because she knew he was not going to survive. I began to take interest in a new career: nursing. To see if nursing was a viable option for me, I started to volunteer at the Paoli Hospital in tenth grade. It did not take long for me to fall in love with the smell of disinfectant wipes. Beginning in eleventh grade, I expanded my horizons and started volunteering at the Bryn Mawr Hospital. At both locations, I was assigned to
Unlike many applicants who have dreamed of entering the medical field since leaving the uterus, my decision was more of a journey. I had many aspirations as a child. In second grade, I wanted to be a police officer. In third grade, I wanted to be an actor. In sixth grade, I wanted to be an architect. By ninth grade, nothing interested me anymore. My grandfather became gravely ill and hospitalized when I was in ninth grade. Visiting my grandfather was the first time I had entered a hospital since I was six years old and my father took me to meet my new baby sister. The hospital was an imposing building and yet I felt energized, not intimidated, by the setting. I witnessed my grandfather’s nurse interacting with him and the connection she had created in a brief period of time. As she left his room I noticed tears in her eyes because she knew he was not going to survive. I began to take interest in a new career: nursing. To see if nursing was a viable option for me, I started to volunteer at the Paoli Hospital in tenth grade. It did not take long for me to fall in love with the smell of disinfectant wipes. Beginning in eleventh grade, I expanded my horizons and started volunteering at the Bryn Mawr Hospital. At both locations, I was assigned to