Every so often I revisit a question that plagues my existence: why did I go back to school when I'd already earned a BSc? I love Kinesiology and deeply valued my learning experience at the University of Waterloo, so why did I continue to pursue a BScN at the a href="http://utoronto.ca">University of Toronto? The question usually comes up around exam time.
I'm going to use this time to reflect (UGH Nursing papers! what have you done to meeee?) on why I chose nursing in the first place and what it means to me. This will only speak to my reasons for going into nursing and are probably not generalizable to my peers, so keep that in mind. I will first recap on a particular memory that makes me laugh now everytime I think about it.
I was in first year university at Waterloo, and it was after the first wave of midterms in Fall 2005. I was bored and confused with the material in the Honors Life Science Biology program, and I was contemplating switching to Kinesiology the following semester. During this semester my father had passed away from Pancreatic cancer, and it was really eating at me despite my best efforts. I had talked about my difficulties with my mom and brothers, and I remember my oldest brother who probably knows me best, asked me,
"What about Nursing? I could see you as a Nurse." My response?
"Uh.... NO. Never." Forward to today: wow, hindsight bias is 20/20.
So, what did make me want to do nursing? Did I even know what "being a nurse" really meant at the time? No, I probably didn't. My understanding of nursing was very preliminary: I had been to hospitals on numerous occasions while my father was sick, while my grandmother was sick, and also my cousin. So I'd only seen hospital nursing, and until I started nursing at U of T, I kind of thought that's where nurses only worked. Naive of me, I know. Anyway, so my understanding of nurses had to do with what I had seen them do with my family members, people I cared about. When I was in my last semester of my UW undergrad, I was looking for more -- I wanted to feel professionally fulfilled. Again, while I loved my Kinesiology undergrad, it wasn't that I didn't feel fulfilled, but I felt like there was something out there where I could do more. I had thought about my dad, grandmother and cousin a lot, and I had admired the way that nurses seemed to venture into what I like to call "horrible situations" with courage and care. When I was visiting my relatives, they always said hello in a comforting way, treated my relatives with care and respect, and seemed to know so much about complicated medical issues. The intricate way that care was meshed together with medical knowledge and people skills was what left me in awe and something I wanted to do.
I was in the kitchen of my Waterloo house with my friend, and he was probing me to think about what I would do when I graduated. I will always be grateful to this friend, because he always pushed me to think forward beyond the current moment, and was really the one to sell me on Nursing (no, he's not in nursing. Actually, he's pursuing a MD/PhD degree!) because I think he could see that I wanted to do more and could somehow see my "inner nurse" trying to break free. His basic question was "What do you want to do with your life?". It's different from asking "What do you want to do?", because when you involve "your life" into the question, it brings into question your values and the "big picture".
I had always wanted to help people -- this much I knew. I was volunteering at the time in a cancer exercise clinic at my school and I really enjoyed going there to talk to the clients and help make that hour "their" time -- time for them to focus on themselves and a goal. Not an hour to sit in a treatment that makes them feel sicker or in pain. I'd come to realize how I take exercise or any kind of physical movement for granted. Getting up in the morning and walking to school seemed like a chore on 2 hours of sleep, but it paled in comparison to the agony and fatigue that cancer treatments left patients feeling. Volunteering in this setting really changed my perspective. At the same time I was doing research with one of my professors, and trying to get more of those critical thinking skills in hand, so I feel like the life experiences I've had (although some were terribly difficult) really shaped me into this career.
I'm starting to get tired of writing and I'm sure you're getting tired of reading, so I'll get straight to the point:
Sometimes a career choice isn't really a choice, but a calling. Nursing was my calling, and I'm glad I came back to school despite my bitching and moaning about classes and exams.
On a completely random note: I found out that my professor from UW is on Mat Leave! I'm ecstatic for her!
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