Coming from a third world country where there aren’t many opportunities for work and funding for education, going to nursing school was a great opportunity. I was blessed to be able to attend a government subsidized school where you have to compete with the top students in the region to get into the program that allowed only 60 students per year. As I began interacting with patients, nursing was not just an opportunity, it became a passion. I really love and enjoy nursing and helping people.
I finished nursing school in 1993 in Cebu City, Philippines. Most of my experiences have been with adult medical and surgical patients. I came to the U.S. in 1995 and started as a certified nursing assistant until I passed the RN licensure …show more content…
I felt like I failed him as a nurse. It was very difficult to go back to work and see patients and their families going through the same things that we went through. I actually thought of quitting and pursuing a different career path. As I was going through my grief process, I avoided interacting with patients for almost a year and confined myself to only doing utilization reviews. But, the pain and anger never left me until I read an article about living a life of peace, joy and a purpose. I then decided that the only way to overcome my grief is to face it. So, I started seeing patients again by doing discharge planning. The more I interacted with patients and their caregivers, the happier and more satisfied I felt about my job. It was then that I remembered why I became a nurse. I loved helping people and making a difference in their …show more content…
After working in case management and patient navigation for 10 years, I decided to try working in a disparate field of nursing. I joined the clinical trials research team in our institution. Working as a clinical trials research nurse, I have found peace and joy by engaging in the quest on finding a better treatment alternative if not cure for cancer. I am elated to learn the rationale behind every treatment that’s involved in the clinical trial. I feel that my experience will avail my ambitions to be a proficient nurse practitioner. There is a huge demand for survivorship care as a result of the advancement in technology and medicine which made living beyond life expectancy possible for more and more people. Living after cancer treatment has some repercussions. There are short and long term side effects of treatment that need to be monitored and addressed. I feel that the knowledge that I’m learning now and my background in case management and patient navigation will help me manage the complex needs of cancer survivorship and as a result will support patients transition into their new way of life. Good transition management can translate into less hospitalizations, lower healthcare cost and less physical, emotional, spiritual, social and financial stress to patients and their support system. Hope comes in different forms. For a dying patient, it means living another day and for a surviving patient, it’s facing the