My Medical Field Experience Essay

Falling asleep to the lullaby of heart monitors and the fragrance of germicide—this is one of my first memories of the hospital. It was the norm for dinner talk to be splattered with talk of blood, drugs, gunshots, and burns, followed by coworker drama, noncompliant patients, and the literal and metaphorical crap that must be dealt with. Growing up this way, medical settings became a comfortable, familiar, and interesting place for me. So much so that nothing but a healthcare career seemed to click the right way with me.

During one of my first volunteer shifts after I moved into the perioperative department, a nurse told me that in any worst-case scenario, he would want to have my mom or aunt working the case with him. For over twenty-five years, the two worked at St. Francis Medical

When I finished my first year in college, I returned to the hospital again for a more clinical experience. After one day of training and three days on the floors, the volunteer department’s program coordinator, asked me to train incoming high school recruits. Despite still feeling like a new recruit myself, I accepted the request. Awkward, tidbit advice smoothed out into casual mini lectures and made me realize that teaching, a career choice I never even considered, is something that I actually enjoy. Spending time on different floors allowed me to see how often nursing students shadow RN’s during work, an aspect of nursing that I hadn’t seen before. Suddenly, I was able to understand why nursing is such an impacted major despite the rising shortage in nurses; there are so few clinics available that can accept any more students, and, as more nurses retire, so few teachers to monitor student-patient interactions. This a problem within the field that affects such a wide range of people that I wish to address when I am a nurse by becoming an