Personal Information as an Aspiring Nurse

Personal Information as an Aspiring Nurse

Introduction

Practicing and aspiring nurses understand the level of dedication and commitment that they need to operate effectively in the nursing field. Nurses strive not only to deliver quality healthcare services to their patients but also establish accommodating environments that will contribute to their well-being. To become a competent nurse, one needs professionalism and a wide range of life experiences to interact appropriately with patients and co-workers from diverse cultures across the world. Life has taught me a lot of experiences that will expose me to both present and future opportunities. For instance, as an aspiring nursing student at the University of North Carolina, I will obtain skills and knowledge that will contribute significantly to the transformation of the healthcare system in the country. Similarly, by associating with people from diverse backgrounds in nursing school, I will be able to develop special skills such as communication, teamwork, and interpersonal skills that will not only improve my interaction with people in school but also develop good working relationships in the future. Therefore, the knowledge, skills, and experience that I have obtained from pre-school up to date will enable me to cope well with people in nursing school and enhance my work in the future as a nurse.

Essay 1

Every day, nurses look forward to saving people’s lives (Grace et al., 2016). They give patients the necessary medications and consistently monitor the progress of their health. Moreover, nurses have volunteered to promote public health in their various communities. As a result, this has enhanced health education among people, enabling them to respond appropriately to the environment and improve their health. Many reasons have pushed me to pursue a career in nursing. With nursing, I will be able to explore a wide range of information regarding human health. Since I will be free to demonstrate my nursing skills even outside work, it will be easier to handle health issues surrounding people near me and in society at large. The nursing field will allow me to interact with people from diverse backgrounds, thus expanding my interpersonal and communication skills. Besides giving me a competitive future salary and absorbing me relatively quickly in the workforce, the nursing career has a more flexible working schedule. As an aspiring nurse, I look forward to remaining competitive and well-informed about new procedures as well as expectations in the field. Grace et al. (2016) explain that to be a competitive nurse who will deliver exceptional care to patients, it is necessary to identify professional goals that will guide the career.

The first goal that will lay a foundation for my nursing profession is the provision of outstanding patient-centered care. With this goal, I will be able to provide healthcare services while focusing on patient satisfaction. Shanta & Eliason (2014) identify that nurses should deliver care while giving the patient experience a lot of consideration. Full customer satisfaction leads to excellent patient experience, which, in turn, improves performance in a health facility. My second professional goal includes increasing the skills of technology. The contemporary world is experiencing constant advancement in technology (Grace et al., 2016). Therefore, to address the complexities of healthcare in the modern generation, nurses should stay abreast of all new technological changes to enhance nursing procedures. Grace (2017) concludes that this will not only make nurses competitive but also play a vital part in saving critical lives. I also aim at continuing health education to uncover discoveries in the field. Moreover, a primary goal that I have in the career includes practicing nursing both locally and globally. As an expert in nursing, I will be able to handle patients from all over the world. Some of the skills and talents that will assist me in my career are communication skills, interpersonal skills, critical thinking, attention to detail, leadership, and relationship building. With these skills and talents, it will be easy to cope well with patients and colleagues. Since I have majored in biology as a subject, nursing is a better career for me as it covers a larger part of the subject.

Essay 2

Individuals encounter many experiences that can teach them to handle critical situations in life. Depending on the experience, an individual may develop an interest in a particular field (Green, Wyllie, & Jackson, 2014). I have encountered various experiences that have taught me impactful lessons. However, the most impactful experience that I have recently encountered provoked my interest to become a nurse. One day, as I was preparing for school, I felt a sharp pain at the back of my head. After some minutes, the pain went down, and I continued with my preparations. As I walked through the door, the pain increased, and the next time I found myself in the hospital bed. When I opened my eyes, a woman dressed in blue gave me a broad smile seeking to know how I was feeling. After introducing herself as my doctor, I ignored her and demanded to know where my parents were. I started calling my mother, and when she did not respond, I tried to get out of bed. However, my head felt so heavy that I went back to sleep. The nurse tried to calm me down and when I had relaxed, she explained to me the whole incident. She told me that I had collapsed after I felt a sharp pain at the back of my head and the doctor was trying to find out what the real problem was. The biggest challenge that I had during the period of hospitalization was the inability to interact with both the nurse and the doctor. Many times, I could chase them away because they made me uncomfortable. Since the sickness had affected my normal mental functioning, the two care providers found it challenging to calm me down, most of the time, when I became violent. The two found proper ways of coping with me and, sometimes, the nurse could tell me stories to sooth me to sleep. The nurse kept on checking up on me and giving me medication consistently. Sometimes, she could assist me when I wanted to get out of bed.

The nurse developed a close relationship with me that I referred to her as my friend. She could help me when I wanted to get up from the bed and dress up. For the three weeks that I was in hospital, I did not complain about anything. When my parents came to visit, the nurse gave us ample time to talk after which she politely requested them to leave when visiting time was over. The nurse’s warm heart eased the healing process and with the help of medication, the doctor managed to discharge me without difficulty. The experience that I had in the hospital not only speeded the healing process but also enabled me to create new friends. As my first admission to the hospital, I found it difficult to interact with the nurse and the doctor who were all strangers to me at the moment. Even though it took time to get used to the two health care providers, I finally managed to interact freely with them. At first, I felt uneasy when the nurse assisted me to dress up. However, she created a free environment, enabling me to stop fearing her. Similarly, the nurse’s ability to develop a good conversation with me eased the interaction between us. The three weeks’ experience in the hospital created a tremendous impact on my life. For instance, it taught me different skills, including practical communication skills, interpersonal skills, and relationship-building skills (Green, Wyllie, & Jackson, 2014). The nurse’s ability to calm me down when I was violent and create friendship between us taught me that one could adapt different behaviors among people from different backgrounds by understanding and appreciating them. Importantly, the experience provoked my interest to become a nurse in the future as I admired the nurse who attended to me when I was hospitalized.

Essay 3

Cultural humility involves a self-reflection process where one tries to understand systematic and personal biases while developing and maintaining respectful trust-based relationships (Shanta & Eliason, 2014). In cultural humility, one humbly acknowledges himself or herself as a learner to understand others’ experiences. It is a life-long process that enables professionals to learn about the cultures of their colleagues while practicing sensitivity to their differences. With cultural humility, nursing professionals can treat their career as a learning process where they learn, understand, and appreciate different cultures that they come across. Nurses should be ready to effectively interact and work with diverse populations, both their work colleagues and patients, from various backgrounds. As globalization increases, nurses may come across people from different cultures (Hook et al., 2013). For this reason, many obstacles are more likely to emerge, including language barriers, the difference in cuisines, religions, dressing codes, among others. It is not appropriate to make judgmental comments where a patient belongs to a different religion. Instead, the nurse should take the time to understand his or her religion and learn from it. Similarly, when a nurse gets a work transfer to a particular country, he or she should do adequate research on its culture to enhance confidence and cultural competence. Therefore, cultural humility enables nurses to learn about patients’ or colleagues’ personal cultural experiences and beliefs.

I have encountered an experience before where I had to demonstrate cultural humility. Having been born in China, where I had my middle and elementary school, I mastered Chinese culture than any other. After middle school, I joined high school in South Carolina and met a different group of students from diverse cultures, after which I landed in Indiana. Throughout my encounter with people from different cultures, I have made great efforts to understand and appreciate them to promote cooperation and convenience during daily activities. Since I had a big part of my education in China, adopting the culture in South Carolina and Indiana was challenging. When I was in South Carolina, I researched its culture and mastered the necessary information about people on the land. In high school, I made friends with a fellow student who was from South Carolina. Since I was from Chinese culture, interacting with my friend was difficult at first. However, I took my time to understand her and often asked her questions to learn more about her. By asking her questions, I obtained a better understanding of her personal cultural experience, thus giving myself the confidence to interact with her without difficulty. Similarly, this prevented me from offending her culture. Apart from building confidence when interacting with people from other cultures, seeking personal cultural experience from them enhances cultural competence. Due to this experience, it has been easy to cope with people in Indiana. Moreover, I expect to deal with people, regardless of their cultural differences, when I join the nursing school at Chapel Hill’s University of North Carolina. Hook et al. (2013) identify that nurses should be ready to work with diverse populations without offending them. For this reason, they should embrace cultural humility by recognizing, understanding, and appreciating the different cultures of their patients and work colleagues (Hook et al., 2013). Similarly, they should treat health care as a learning process where they meet and learn about different cultures every day.