Course for Nursing at the College of Sequoias, in California - Essay Example

Nursing Application Essay I have always wanted to work in the field of healthcare, either as a doctor or a nurse. With this in mind, having graduated from high school I chose to study sciences for my bachelor's degree at the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, India. Within the bachelor's degree I took (which included courses in English, Botany, Chemistry and Zoology) my real interest was in Chemistry, and so I stayed on at GNDU to study for a master's degree in Chemistry. Although I greatly enjoyed both degrees, the areas in both that appealed to me most were those involving human sciences, so I decided to follow my childhood ambition and become qualified as a doctor. I applied and was selected for the Physician program, but, as so often happens, life got in the way: I met my husband-to-be and we moved together to the USA. Becoming a mother has since taken up much of my time; however, I feel that caring for my two children has taught me many valuable skills which could be transferred into the field of nursing. In fact, having children has inspired me further to work in the field of healthcare - it has shown me that looking after other people is something I love to do, and also something I am (I hope!) quite good at. Once my children started to grow up and place fewer demands on my time, I took the prerequisite course for nursing at the College of Sequoias, in California. Meanwhile, I have been trying to work in the medical field as much as possible: since I am not qualified as a doctor or nurse, I have been volunteering, at first at the local Community hospital, and now at the Doctor's hospital. My volunteer work has opened my eyes to what it is really like to be a doctor or nurse - it has shown me just how hard the work can really be, but also how rewarding. Even though my responsibilities are few - I shadow the doctor and take the patients' vital signs for him/her - I take real pleasure in my work at the hospital: this, more than anything, has confirmed my desire to work full-time in the field. As regards my goals for working as a nurse, I hope to be able to serve the community in which I live. Shadowing the doctor in my volunteer work, I have seen how easy it can be to treat many problems that people have. This, I feel, is the essential aspect of being a nurse: to be able to help in as short a possible time the hundreds of people who come in with minor complaints, as well as to provide assistance to specialist doctors in more serious cases. Working at the Community hospital, I was struck by how understaffed they are: the doctors and nurses work extremely hard for very long hours. I would like to be a part of this team and hopefully ease the pressure on them, and so provide a better service for the patients. Many of the people who use the Community hospital are very poor and so have little alternative, and the recognition that every extra pair of hands will make a genuine difference to their lives has spurred me on to want to work there. I believe that nursing is very important to society as a profession. Nurses have a significant role to play, both as auxiliary to members of the medical profession and also as a healthcare support network in their own right. Hence the aim of nursing, to provide a reliable system of healthcare to the community, can, I believe, be divided into two separate modes of functioning: firstly, to provide the support needed by medics to carry out their job (i.e. the healing of patients); secondly, in a more general sense to help maintain the community in optimal health. This latter objective is quite wide-ranging: I feel it is the duty of the nursing profession to provide both preventative and curing healthcare, both for physical and mental complaints. This might involve anything from organizing community discussion groups to help people with psychological problems to the more traditional image of a nurse applying a bandage or administering medicine to a patient. All in all, I believe that nursing has an essential part to play in the successful functioning of a community, and from this stems my desire to become a nurse: I would like to be able to help my community, and I believe that I have the necessary skills. Along these lines, the idea of teaching in a nursing program appeals to me very much. It is only through good quality education that more doctors and nurses can be supplied to the hospitals, and so I believe that this education is very important. As a teacher, I would want above all to convey my enthusiasm for being a nurse to my students, since I feel that it is simply impossible to do such an emotionally draining job unless you genuinely love it. In addition, I think that it is extremely important that the students get an idea of what the job entails, so I would want to place a lot of emphasis in my teaching on relating the theory to the practical side of the course. I believe that I have good communication skills (helping my children with their school work has aided me in this) , and I relate easily to other people, so I feel I have the necessary skills and abilities to succeed at teaching in a nursing program. Read More