“Not All Who Wander Are Lost”

I’m starting on a new path in my journey. Those who know me are aware of the many titles, positions and experience I’ve garnered in such a short period of time. I’ve covered a lot of ground, but the journey however, has never changed. My career aspirations will always be grounded in providing the best, holistic, compassionate, evidence-based patient care that I can, and implementing research that innovates and optimizes tools and technology for those who will provide this care. My mission is patients at the forefront.

Trauma ICU
Emergency Medicine
Research & Technology
NEXT >>> NICU - PICU

I promise all posts, will not be novels. But I’ve got to lay a foundation here, so have at it:

IN THE BEGINNING

My healthcare journey began unconventionally. I was working a pretty good job as a paralegal and completing steps to get into law school. As a believer, I felt it in my heart that I needed to be doing more than school and 9 to 5. I felt the urge to give back to my community (Honest Moment: I also knew community involvement looked great on law school applications) so I decided to volunteer at a local hospital. Of course, volunteers had limited options. Even more so, with no goals or previous involvement in healthcare, I was offered slim pickings for where I got to help. I’m not good with limited options. I went around the program and made my own contacts and followed their direction on how to get a more interesting assignment.

I was placed in NICU after a couple of months in mother-baby. I had made friends (mentors) with the nurses, and expressed I’d increasingly enjoyed my time with the babies. They recommended me and I started in NICU shortly after more background checks and hoops to jump through.

INSPIRATION

I remember my first NICU patient. A newborn going through opioid withdrawal was being treated. I was there the day she arrived, and the day she went home. I watched the NICU nurses (dually trained as labor & delivery nurses) meticulously care for this baby, among other patients and deliveries they had. She started out with a feeding tube, lines, very tiny and struggling heavily. Upon her exit about 8 weeks later she looked amazing. A healthy baby, with a near normal assessment. Seeing the nurses in NICU applying different principles to their care and assisting with care for that patient (among others) left me in admiration. I now often hear the same reverence from family members of ICU patients. To watch a team work to save a life, a life already so fragile, it’s an inspiring thing. I saw the nurses be innovative, compassionate, adaptable: far more than ‘just a nurse’.

PURPOSE

I began spending more of my free time in the NICU. I went in on weekends; I visited the nurses when they didn’t need volunteers. I offered up weeknights. My parents noticed the change. While the pay of my 9 to 5 was more than enough for me, I was not satisfied. I began hating the job I was being paid for. It was shortly after getting home from a Saturday volunteering shift in NICU that my dad sat down with me and asked if I was happy. My dad is someone who can see right through your bullshit, so it’s refreshing to have to be true and honest with yourself when you speak to him. I wasn’t happy, but more than that, I did not feel at all accomplished or enjoyment from my job. It was then that he stated, “What you will do for free, and enjoy, is what you should be doing”. I enjoyed caring for others, as much as my minimal scope as a volunteered allowed, but I wanted more. I wanted to do what those NICU nurses did; I wanted to change lives, and I’d do it for free. To my parents surprise, I ended my job as a paralegal two weeks later. Many of the nurses recommended becoming a care technician to see if I really wanted to be a nurse. I will make the same recommendation for other future nurses. I began a CNA program at junior college a month later.

DETOUR

After working as a float patient care technician (OB, ER, ICU) for less than a year, I applied into nursing school. There is SO much I can say about nursing school. I will save that for another day and another post. In my senior year and around graduation time, we were encouraged to speak to advisors, mentors and fellow nurses we’d met about career pathways. I was advised that NICU/Women’s Care was not a smart choice. Not only were the positions hard to get into, but if I chose a specialty so limited so soon I wouldn’t be a ‘well rounded’ nurse. I believed the hype. After graduation, I went to trauma ICU at level I trauma center (not bad I thought, not bad at all). After my time in another Trauma ICU, I was offered a choice between a mother baby position and an emergency room residency. Again, I was blinded by the lights (and ER, what an opportunity!) and you know what? I loved it. Working in the ER on a busy night is a rush you don’t forget or give up, but something was missing. Sometimes on my breaks in ER, I’d walk a short distance over to the NICU. I’d peek in and wave at the nurses. I knew NICU didn’t have a rush. There was no action, no lights, no paramedics ;) But there were the babies: the little fighters, the underdogs. What about them?

EN ROUTE

Quarantine, a summer working in research, technology and development, and family and friends health scares brought me back down to earth. I was not doing everything I could to reach my goals. I was not sticking to my journey. What had become of my ambitions? After mulling over offers for pediatric OR, private anesthesiology teams and NICU. My mom (as moms usually do) asked the question that needed to be asked: “Why did you go into nursing in the first place?”.

Here begins my time in NICU (with the awesome opportunity to dually train for PICU). I’ll get to participate in research, and work with a big team including residents, nurses and specialists again.

Will it be everything I imagined over 5 years ago? ‘Will Continue to Monitor’ <3