My Nursing Philosophy

For years my mom always told me that nursing was such a great career and that she thought I would make a wonderful nurse.  I was never interested, I had a huge fear of needles and a weak stomach!  I bounced around from different schools and majors for a few years and then I took some time off from school and traveled for a while.  I traveled to South Africa to visit my cousin for a few weeks and fell in love with the people in the Zulu village outside of the town I was staying.  We ended up changing our plane tickets, dropping out of school and with the help of some friends we made starting a volunteer program working with AIDS orphans in the village.  We stayed 7 months and when I came home, all I wanted to do was to go back!  I decided that the best way for me to be able to help would be to become a nurse. 

I think that I want to be a Pediatric Oncology nurse.  I've always love children and after dealing with children facing AIDS and other fatal illnesses I feel like that is the area I want to specialize in.  I think that as a nurse you have treat each patient with the care that you would want one of your family members to be treated.  In the past year, my grandmother has been in and out of the hospital and is now in a nursing home.  Watching some of the nurses, I was shocked at the way they treated my grandmother and then at other times a certain nurse would come in and treat her wonderfully.  After going through that for the past year, it made me come to realize that every nurse should treat an elderly patient as if they were their own grandmother or grandfather or their mother or father.  Each patient is special to someone and deserves to be treated that way.  

I believe that one of the most important things for a nurse to be is passionate about helping others.  It baffles me when I hear people say that they are choosing a career in nursing because of the money and the nursing shortage!  If I'm ever sick or a loved one of mine is sick, I want a nurse who is there because she cares....not for the paycheck at the end of the day.  I would define a nurse as someone who is passionate about helping others, who is caring and empathetic to the needs of others.