Personal Narrative: A Career In Nursing

Although pursuing a career as a nurse was not something I had always dreamed of becoming when I was a kid, it is something that I not only aspire to become today, but am on my way towards achieving. It took shadowing various health professionals and volunteering for me to realize that becoming a nurse was the position within the healthcare field that I was most passionate for.

Through my shadowing opportunities, I was able to observe health professionals in two medically underserved areas; Akron, Ohio and Marietta, Ohio. Just by driving through the cities, I was able to see differences between them. Marietta was a much more rural area, with more farmland and less city life while Akron was a more urban area with taller buildings and no farmland

that I could see. With just these obvious differences, I realized that I had the unique experience of observing in both an urban and rural medically underserved area. An underserved community is a community where there is a shortage of healthcare professionals and a population with incomes at the poverty level. In a situation like this, the quality of care and attention would be lower than desired. By shadowing in both urban and rural medically underserved areas, I learned that an underserved community is not just a remote or rural area, it can also be an urban area like Akron, Ohio. It was not something I expected to learn, but it was enlightening.

I gained an appreciation for both communities and I was able to see some of the differences that are present between them. Most importantly, I learned that no matter the differences, an underserved community is an important area to be a part of in order to help alleviate some of these issues that comes with having a shortage of healthcare professionals and populations with incomes at the poverty level.

Through these experiences, I have not only learned that I have a passion for serving any patient, but it became especially obvious to me that no matter where a patient is from or what type of community they are a part of, everyone deserves the same level of compassionate and competent care. These experiences made me realize that it would be fulfilling to work in both an urban or rural underserved community.