My Personal Reflection
Getting accepted into nursing was the beginning of a new chapter in my life. At first, I had mixed emotions of excitement and intimidation, but I knew no matter what I was going to work hard and try to persevere to have the title of a nurse. One of my goals of becoming a nurse stemmed from my desire to try to make a difference in many people’s lives through care. When I put on the scrub for the first time going to my lab, I knew for sure that I wanted to become a nurse and there was no backing down at that moment. There were many moments I felt like giving up during this course, especially when I didn’t do well on my midterm and some others did. At the end of the day entering nursing was all about adjusting and other people adjust differently. It took me some time to adjust to the content and the style of school, but as I kept going on things started to click better. What took me into nursing initially was the fact that I was really into sciences as a kid. I always excelled at sciences throughout high school and I was also into medicine a lot. I found it interesting that you can incorporate a unique combination of science in practice. Also, the idea that I can help people and make their lives overall better through compassionate care through elements of science. My mom is also a really big influence in my decision to become a nurse as I have seen how much hard work she put in and it inspired me to do this career. Throughout my coursework, I’ve gained a deeper insight into nursing as a whole and learned to appreciate the profession. In the NURS 1000 course, I learned so much about patient-centered care and how it is very important to build that nurse-patient relationship to provide the best care. Learning about holistic care truly changed my approach when it came to caring for someone. In an article about nurse-patient communication research, one of the very things that stood out to me is if communication is balanced then nurses and patients will take their roles and everything will go smoothly. So by reading this article, I’m taking away the very importance of communication between nurse and patient in the health care setting. Talking about health issues and social issues surrounding nursing I feel like my whole mind has changed and my perspective of nursing in general is very different. However, stepping into this field of nursing has brought its fair share of doubt and worries. On some days, I question if I’ll be able to do a job like this as it can be emotionally and physically demanding. Another nursing article, talks about burnout and how many nurses were significantly affected by this due to low job satisfaction. After reading this section I sometimes get a little worried about how the future of nursing and how this burnout might affect me in the future. The responsibility of providing safe, high-quality care could also be quite scary to think about, especially in a high-pressure environment like the hospital. I’ve also encountered many benefits of nursing and many challenges throughout the program. The benefit is being able to have an impact on people and educate communities about health while the negatives/challenges could be burnout from all the work and all the pressure could be a little overwhelming.
Overall, the challenges of nursing do not outweigh the rewards. The future of nursing has so much to offer and many chances to grow as a person while giving many opportunities. It is amazing to see how far I’ve come and yet still how much more I need to learn. This journey that I have been on has shown me and reinforced my beliefs and my values of resilience, compassion, and integrity, and as I move forward I am ready to embrace every challenge and opportunity with the same passion and determination that brought me here.
References
Höglander, J., Holmström, I. K., Lövenmark, A., Van Dulmen, S., Eide, H., & Sundler, A. J. (2023). Registered nurse–patient communication research: An integrative review for future directions in nursing research. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 79(2), 539–562. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.15548
Van Bogaert, P., Timmermans, O., Weeks, S. M., van Heusden, D., Wouters, K., & Franck, E. (2014). Nursing unit teams matter: Impact of unit-level nurse practice environment, nurse work characteristics, and burnout on nurse reported job outcomes, and quality of care, and patient adverse events—A cross-sectional survey. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 51(8), 1123–1134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2013.12.009