How nursing found me.

My journey to becoming a nurse was different. It was never a narrow road but filled with challenges, hurdles, and personal revelations. Like many immigrant families, my parents’ expectations of what I could become were decided, and their belief entailed a career path of me being a doctor, engineer, or lawyer. After high school, I enrolled in the Bachelor of Engineering program. I felt lost and uninterested but wanted to be part of something big that allowed me to make a difference in someone’s life and be a caregiver, just as I am to my older brother. I was drawn towards ethics, values, and helping people in making a difference, which was mostly influenced by caring for my older brother, who has special needs. As his caregiver and substitute decision-maker, I oversaw all his medical care and was involved in all his appointments and hospital visits. The passion in nurses began to settle in as I witnessed how nurses and healthcare professionals care for my brother, and this motivated me to start my nursing journey. In this reflection, I will be linking two articles titled “Views on Nurses’ Understanding of a Holistic Approach to Nursing by Wihlborg et al (2024) ” and “A Review of the Role of Nurse Leadership in Promoting and sustaining evidence-Based Practice. by Bianchi et al. 2018)” to my personal experience of being a caregiver and the transition to the nursing profession.

Transitioning from engineering to nursing was challenging; understanding how each quality care was structured and the complexity of critical thinking was overwhelming but exciting. I was motivated and engaged with the materials, clinical placements, and learning how to structure each care in a clinical setting. Through clinical placement, I realized that the  process of developing care is complex, as it requires more than just the biomedical approach. Each care is tailored differently and meeting their needs requires us to understand the patient as a whole, which involves their mental health, social life, and current health conditions. This approach is known as the nursing model; it is a systemic approach that helps nurses to understand any  challenges that patients might face and develop care that is based on benefiting a better outcome for the patient (Deliktas et al., 2019). This framework introduced me to holistic care, which is defined by caring for an individual to prioritize their well-being. It is a process that focuses on humans’ social, physical, psychological, and spiritual needs. Additionally, an essential factor in holistic care is the comprehensive approach to factoring all their dimensions; this approach allows us nurses to look for challenges that impact their daily living conditions; a good example would be limited resources, funding, education, and access to care

The article titled “Views on Nurses’ Understanding of a Holistic Approach to Nursing by Wihlborg et al. (2024)” highlights the importance of holistic care and the connection between the nurse and the patient’s needs. It highlights the holistic challenges and addresses the systemic barrier even in nursing, such as time constraints that limit the nurses from addressing some of the patient’s needs and training for physiological challenges with mental health (Wihlborg & Maria, 2024). Having these challenges also puts strain on nurses and their ability to meet patient needs and personally, I was lucky enough to see an outcome that had a positive perspective on my journey to nursing. In my experience, it was the compassionate care my brother received in the emergency unit, and his limited communication skills created a barrier for nurses to meet his need. But despite the communication barrier, the nurse was able to utilize other alternative methods, such as demonstrating what they were going to do, showing pictures, and involving him in the discharge plan, which allowed him to feel valued.

This commitment to going above and beyond left an impression on how I should approach my patients and their care. In addition to this framework, I admired nurses’ knowledge when providing care and the significance of using evidence-based practice. Evidence-based practice is an organized strategy in clinical decision-making, critical thinking, patient safety, rights, and clinical interventions. This decision-making process is backed up by research, the aspected outcome, the risk, and the benefits (Bianchi, 2018.) An article titled “A review of the role of nurse leadership in promoting and sustaining evidence-based practice by Bianchi et al. (2018)” explores the nurse’s role and patient safety and the use of evidence-based practice to foster an environment where care is guided by prioritizing safety and wellbeing. Furthermore, it also emphasizes nursing leadership and the value of professionalism, which is to stay updated and improve the quality of care to meet the highest standard of care (Bianchi, 2018.) I profoundly believe in evidence-based practice and improving care and safety; for instance, during my clinical placement in one of the med surge units, my clinical instructor educated us on the importance of aspiration and verification of nasogastric placement. She emphasized aspirating by bedside of the gastric acid and verifying the acidic pH ensures us that it is in the right place. In doing so, we can evaluate an outcome for the patient and improve the quality of care and safety.

In conclusion, in the journey to becoming a practical nurse, I adhere to frameworks such as a holistic approach, evidence-based practice, and ethical principles, allowing me to build the foundation of becoming a nurse. Caring for my brother allowed me to take on a role that can make a difference, but also be a leader, be open-minded, and continue to improve my knowledge. That’s only the start of my journey and registering for nursing school at Trent University is just the start.