Personal Statement

Why do I want to be a nurse? Simply, I want to make people’s lives better, whether they have years, months, or days to live. I want to get to know patients personally and advocate for them and their families in some of the hardest times of their lives. I know that I want to be a nurse, but it has not always been this way. As a little kid, my older brother’s illness caused me to spend a lot of time with nurses whose commitment and compassion amazed me. They gave me the feeling that the nursing field could be for me one day, but, once my brother recovered and our lives moved on, I eventually pushed this feeling to the side and focused on other possibilities. It was not until my junior year of high school that this idea presented itself again.

From this moment on, Kevin became extremely familiar with hospitals. He underwent three brain surgeries in three years, the last of which finally made him tumor-free. Throughout these three years, Kevin’s nurses became a vital part of my family’s life. While it was the doctors who physically removed his growing tumor, it was not just them who saved him. Kevin’s nurses got to know him, as well as the rest of my family, on a more personal level. It was the nurses who made sure he always felt as safe and comfortable as possible. It was the nurses who communicated with my parents regularly to make sure they were doing okay. It was the nurses who spent everyday trying to distract my brother from his pain and make him smile. It was the nurses who made sure my brother was not scared of anything, whether it was a shot or an invasive surgery. And it was the nurses who became a friend to him. Even as a young child, it was clear to me how much they cared about my family, and how much my family cared about each one of them. While I certainly did not understand the obligations of their career, I knew they were doing something great, and little me thought, “I want to be just like them one

I have always loved children, and I would love a career that involves them. While I have no doubt about the pediatric part, it is the oncology piece that scares me a bit. A family friend of mine who is a pediatric oncology nurse told me that there was nothing in her nursing education that prepared her for the emotional impact her job would have on her. She explained that she had to learn how to detach herself from her patients enough to keep their sicknesses and deaths from impeding her responsibilities as a nurse, so that she could help each and every patient to the best of her ability. I think in an oncology unit you see people, whether patients, family members, or friends, in their most fragile state, and being able to help them through their most vulnerable times is worth all the difficulties in the world. I love children, and, more than that, I love people, so I think being a pediatric oncology nurse is the right path for me, despite my