Starting college my freshman year, I knew I wanted to work in healthcare and thought my passion was Occupational Therapy, that was until I started working at the local hospital. I started as a nursing aid in 2022 to obtain hands on patient care for graduate school applications, where I got firsthand patient care experience working side by side with registered nurses. I have grown up around nurses, whether it be family or friends, and admire their hard work and dedication to the job. I especially understood the patience, communication, and teamwork it takes to run a unit after working in a hospital setting. It truly takes an army. I gained experience working night shifts as a clinical associate at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, WV, for almost 2 years. I worked on a med surg and …show more content…
This was not an easy floor to work on, but with all the support and help from my coworkers, there was never a time I did not feel supported. They were so welcoming to me knowing that I had no prior patient care experience and taught me all I needed to know, as well as seeing things I would never have thought I would be able to see at that level. I felt so much pride in myself being able to care for my patients, knowing that I was able to make such an impact in their lives. I loved being able to talk to patients while taking their vitals, or helping them in the bathroom, and just getting to know them on a more personal level. Having the opportunity to gain so much experience in a hospital setting makes me feel prepared for the road ahead for me and I feel that it has helped me better my time management, patience level, teamwork, and communication skills. The nurses that I worked with were incredibly caring and passionate about their job, and being able to work with a community like that was truly life changing. My mother was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer in my spring 2022 year of