Reflection

The story of my entry into nursing began during my last year in an alternate undergraduate program, at a university located approximately four and a half hours away from Trent. At exactly this time, November, last year, 2023, I was in the second last semester of the Sport and Physical Education program, with Concurrent Education at Laurentian University in Sudbury. I was completing an internship, for the first time outside of a school, at a Physiotherapy Clinic. All my other experiences in placement had been in public schools as a part of my teaching degree. To this day, I still don’t fully know why I decided to go into teaching at the time. I knew that I wanted to help people, but I didn’t know exactly to what extent I wanted to pursue that feeling. My time at the Neuro Physio Physiotherapy Clinic in Sudbury was my first taste of really feeling like I was pursuing something that I wanted to do as a career; something that I didn’t exactly experience before throughout my education placements. As the internship progressed, I began to build relationships with the patients and fully immerse myself in the position of a physiotherapist caregiver. Seeing how the physiotherapist impacted each patient throughout physical care and also as a support system, listener, and advisor, I knew that I needed to be in the patient-care field. That was how I wanted to help people.

Throughout this discovery process, I spent lots of time self-reflecting. I wanted to make sure that I was making the best decision for myself, without listening to any outside judgement whether it was from friends or family members. Self-reflection has many benefits on a daily basis, but also as a student, and then in the future as a nurse. Self-reflection is a way in which an individual can begin to understand themselves, learn their strengths and interests, and better apply them to their own lives; in turn also helping to improve their self-awareness (Contreras et al., 2020). In terms of decision-making during my transition into nursing school, self-reflection helped me to identify my interests, and truly focus on what I wanted to do with my education journey. In terms of nursing school and onward into nursing practice, the art of self-reflection is a key component in managing oneself, stress, and emotions (Contreras et al., 2020). As a nursing student and as a nurse, you are constantly experiencing situations where emotions and stress could potentially get the better of you; that’s just a key element in a caring profession. By learning to process and handle stress and emotions, you can learn how to process situations healthily and present more professionally; allowing yourself to improve the practice, quality, and safety of your overall care (Contreras et al., 2020). Self-reflection also positively impacts the nurse’s and nursing student’s connection-making abilities in terms of learning, professional growth, and clinical competency (Contreras et al., 2020). I used self-reflection as a tool to help me make this important transitional decision into nursing school, but it is also a tool that I have heavily used throughout the first semester of nursing school, and will continue to use throughout further education, clinicals, and into my future practice. Surprisingly to some, but not myself, this decision was not hard. It was big and life-changing, but it was not hard. Ever since I was young, I knew I wanted a career where I could help people daily. At first, I thought maybe this could be pursued by shaping the minds of the future and teaching children different lifelong skills. However, after my time spent in Physiotherapy, I realized that the ‘helping’ aspect I craved, was through patient care. I also discovered through my reflection process that while I loved physiotherapy and the overall atmosphere, I wanted to have patient care on a deeper level. One that introduced science more in-depth, but also the relationship aspect with both the patient and their family throughout times of need. Each aspect above pointed me in the direction of nursing, especially the opportunity to build meaningful relationships with patients. Patient interaction is key in developing trusting relationships and general patient-centred care (Kwame & Petrucka, 2021). By communicating with a patient, you open the door to acknowledging potential care barriers and then break them down, focusing on the outcome and patient’s care instead, while doing everything in your power to make it positive (Kwame & Petrucka, 2021). I was able to recognize this through the physiotherapy clinic experience, which pushed me to want to make sure that patients were able to have those positive interactions with their care provider, increasing the quality of care they were receiving. It was a new goal of mine coming into this education and future profession.

Over the summer, before beginning the nursing program at Trent University, I was excited to return to school. I was also a little nervous though for the workload of nursing, especially in an accelerated program, despite already having graduated from a previous bachelor’s degree. When transitioning into the nursing program, in comparison to my previous undergraduate degree, I did notice a distinct change. The workload was much heavier than what I had experienced in the past. In this semester in particular there were a lot more theory-based courses than science, which wasn’t what I was used to. The number of readings and work quickly became isolating, and I noticed that I started to forget about taking care of myself and my own needs. I realized that the prioritization of self-care was needed as a part of my daily habits. Self-care as a student is extremely important because not only are you taking care of yourself, but you are helping to put yourself in a better position to do well both in and out of school. This concept also follows you into the actual nursing career as well. To be able to take care of your patient’s needs, you must also be able to take care of your own (Mancini & Monforto, 2023). When you take care of your needs, whether that be getting enough sleep, eating a nutritious meal, or spending time with friends, you are participating in self-care and are ultimately bettering your mind, body, and spirit, which in hand betters your abilities towards school or taking care of patients (Mancini & Monforto, 2023). For me, this meant setting a proper bedtime and wake-time that allowed me to get at least 8 hours of sleep a night, planning and prepping healthy and nutritious meals for each day, spending time with friends or talking on the phone to family members, and practicing deep breathing measures to destress before bed.

Coming to the end of my first semester of nursing school, I can say that I have not once regretted my decision to follow this path. If anything, what I have learned throughout these nursing theory classes is that I am meant to be here, I am meant to be a nurse, and I truly cannot wait to start helping people. The transition from my first undergraduate degree, into nursing may have been tough and time-consuming, but I was able to learn lessons about myself and my own needs along the way. These lessons, self-reflection and especially self-care, are going to help me manage my time and stress levels throughout the remainder of my education, through exam season, and clinicals, and then out into the real world as an actual nurse.