Why I want to be a nurse (in third person)

Once upon a time there was a little girl who didn’t know what she wanted to be when she grew up. Her parents said, “Be a doctor!” her friends said, “Be a writer!” but the little girl became neither of these. She finished college in a daze of biology experiments and short stories and at the end of her last semester, with no acceptance letters from grad school, when a visiting professor said, “I think I can get you a job at my company,” she jumped at the chance.

She interviewed at the smallish publishing company for entry-level positions in both the editorial and marketing departments. Editorial because duh, she wanted to be a writer, and marketing because she’d honed her marketing skills in a summer internship at Chicago magazine and the name, if not the job description (make coffee, fax documents, address invitations for numerous PR events), brought her some clout.

So she got the marketing job probably because she was more qualified, and advanced approximately one rung up the marketing career ladder after six months. A year after that, having failed to advance any further, the little girl began to ponder what exactly she wanted to do with her life. Did she want to stay in her job, a job that brought colorful mailers to hoards of college professors and helped the company sell books? Or should she do something else? Something that (at least she thought) mattered a bit more?

The realization came to her one dreary afternoon in December while the little girl was checking her non-work e-mail and playing a non-work- approved game on her work computer. The little girl had been praying and praying for God to reveal to her the next step in her career, in her life. She had been asking for guidance for weeks, and was listening closely for any answer He might give. It came to her very suddenly that afternoon, catching her completely off guard: “You should be a nurse!”

The thought floated around in her head for a minute, and as it did the little girl slowly began to warm to it. As a nurse, she could work with people, face to face. She could affect their lives positively and see an improvement in their health, in their temperament, everything! Surely that would matter more to her than correcting grammar mistakes on the latest direct-mail piece her boss wanted to send out.

Days later she found herself on the phone with her college’s admissions person, and then with the community college admissions person. She could go to nursing school, but she needed to take a few courses first. So she enrolled at the community college, beginning her prerequisite education with a course in nutrition. She couldn’t believe that during her four years in college she hadn’t taken a nutrition class. But she absolutely loved it.

The road to nursing school was a long one, and at times much harder than the little girl had anticipated. She was expected to memorize all the bones and joints and muscles for her anatomy class, and take practical quizzes and tests where she’d walk around a room full of cadavers and try to name the indicated body part. She had to read Tuesdays with Morrie for the third time for her human development class, and still was not as affected by the book as her teacher seemed to be. But she got through it. And when she applied to nursing school, she got in. So she quit her job at the publishing company and decided to go for it.

The little girl experienced many pangs of doubt throughout her schooling. She wondered, is this really the right path for me? Especially when her clinical instructors seemed to be particularly hard on her that first semester. Whenever she felt worried or doubted her choice, though, she thought back to her most positive experience with a nurse, at a clinic visit with her OB/GYN. She was of course, nervous about the appointment, but the minute the nurse pulled her out of the waiting room with a warm, “How are you today?” and a smile, she relaxed. When she left the same nurse showed her out, and said, “Have a wonderful weekend!” And that was all.

But it was because of that nurse, of her warmth and compassion during a definitely nervous time, that the little girl chose nursing. She wanted to deliver that same warmth and compassion the nurse had shown her to all of her patients. And she knew, in time, she would be able to do just that.

It’s also from that experience that the little girl decided to work in women’s health. If she could make appointments or hospital stays any easier for women just like her, who had been and would be in her position as a patient, she wanted to do it. Plus, think of all the knowledge and experience the little girl would gain, what it could teach her about her own body systems, about birth, about parenting...the little girl knew that women’s health was the exact right choice for her.

After three semesters of nursing school, the little girl applied for a job on the OB floor of her favorite community hospital, and got it. The little girl knew then that her fate was sealed, and that it was indeed her fate to become a women’s health nurse. The comfort and excitement she felt when she told the HR person, “Yes, I’ll take the job!” eliminated any remaining doubt she had in her mind. She was going to be an OB nurse, it was what she’d always wanted to be, even if it had taken her a little longer to figure that out than everyone else.