DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

REFLECTION

 

 

     Admittedly, with a less than auspicious beginning, the last four years were a wondrous odyssey.  December 23, 2008, I attended an annual holiday party hosted by the corporate entity at which I was employed; a bank at which I had worked for five years.  During the dinner that marked our holiday festivities, employees were informed that our division was down-sizing, a bare bones staff retained, the New York division would be closed and a small number of executives would be relocated to Columbus Ohio.  Regretfully, the remaining staff were dismissed.  Nothing says Merry Christmas like losing your sole source of income.  It was the third time in 10 years I had been statistical footnote of “Natural Attrition”.


     Aside from taking into consideration the divisional move, the advent of [and advances in] technology, corporate institutions as well as private sector industry, were continuing to phase out administrative support personnel.  This combined with the crash of the housing and mortgage markets, and the depression of all the •Com’s, there were no foreseeable employment opportunities on my horizon.  Employment rates plummeted, unemployment rates skyrocketed. Responses to the resumes I posted were not forthcoming. It became apparent that my function in the corporate world was fast becoming obsolete.  Metaphorically speaking, I was scratching my head, pondering what to do next…


     Weeks were spent researching different professions; I searched the internet and questioned many friends and neighbors about their careers.  Several of my neighbors, I discovered, were nurses.  In fact, a few were LaGuardia Community College graduates.  They sang the praises of the Nursing profession and LaGuardia’s educational program.  Each in turn spent many an hour with me discussing what the profession of nursing entails, the myriad of opportunities available, career path directions, diversity of practice, choice of settings and the demand for skilled nurses across the country.  Intrigued and very much interested, I read about the nursing profession and made an appointment to speak with a LaGCC advisor.


     As I stated in my “Introduction”, I had always harbored an unspoken desire to achieve a formal college education; now this was the time to put my thoughts and desires into action. After spending three months getting my life and home in order, I woke up one [fortuitous] morning and marched myself to LaGuardia’s admissions office.  There I found that LAGCC offers an educational scaffold from which I chose to construct my knowledge base in math, psychology and science.  Finally, I would embark upon my dream of acquiring knowledge.  Instead of viewing my [lack of] employment as emotionally and financially detrimental, I chose to be happy, embrace my situation in a positive light and ferret out a new direction for my life.  Robert Frost wrote in “The Road Not Taken” about the symbolic fork in the road, the conscious choices we make, the inability to extrapolate all future consequences, and not being fully able to comprehend the myriad of outcomes.  How many of us can state that they are fortunate enough to go back to that fateful fork in the road and choose the alternative direction?  I do not know what is in store, but I welcome this exciting opportunity to travel the alternative fork; head down, shoulders squarely steeled against the elements, securely cloaked in a mantle of determination I walk into a newly defined future.  Through education, I am aggressively pursuing a career in Nursing.  Right from the inception of my academic journey, LaGuardia Community College awakened in me an unbridled passion for learning and a newfound joy in educational pursuit.


     The preceding thoughts were reflective of how I arrived at the decision to attend Nursing School.  The following statements are reflective of my personal growth as both a student and budding nurse.  Reflection allows me to look inside my self, internalize experiences and evaluate my decisions while simultaneously facilitating crystallization of future directions.  Reflection lends clarity as well as understanding to past accomplishments and future goals.


     As I look back at my first semester in Fundamentals of Nursing, I realize how little I knew about the profession of Nursing.  Yes I was wide eyed and eager, but, except for the superficial exposure to nurses in the past I was truly uninformed about the nursing profession and the functions nurses perform.  My first clinical rotations in Fundaments were exciting, frightening, filled with wonder, scary and very, very, educational.  I was fortunate enough to have my fledgling introduction to nursing at an institution called Coler-Goldwater.  Residing at this hospital were many patients who required long-term care; many were transferred from other institutions in need of skilled palliative nursing attention.  The patients I encountered there [all] were suffering from irreversible, degenerative conditions; which made for a very rich and diversified educational experience.


     One patient in particular made a huge impression upon me and reinforced my decision to enter nursing.  This patient was assumed to have been a victim of a street fight and experienced the consequences of blunt force trauma to the head.  Before family members realized that medical attention was necessary, several of the cranial nerves had died.  I met this patient post surgery.  If memory serves correct, the frontal, temporal, parietal, uncus and part of the occipital portion of the left side of the brain had been removed.  As we students stood quietly at the bedside, our professor lectured about the patient’s condition and prognosis.  The outcome was described as grim.  Clearly visible, as I stood over the patient, was a deep depression where the skull was supposed to be; evidence of where the patient’s brain had been removed.  The surgeon had chosen to leave the skull open [to minimize intracranial pressure] and closed the skin over the cavernous maw where 6 or 7 inches of skull bone had been excised.  Looking at the deep pulsating depression, I felt my knees buckle slightly and, for just a brief short second of time, I felt my breath catch in my throat.  Washing over me was an overwhelming sense of compassion; I felt my heart go out to this person in this unfortunate circumstance.  This brief instant in time affected me deeply.  I remember thinking: “there but for the grace of God go I”.  Gazing upon a person in this circumstance conscripts introspection.  It prompts examination of yourself, your life, your job, your health, your family, your circumstance and say: I am here on this planet for a blink of an eye.  In one brief moment… in one fateful instant, fortune can change, life can be irrevocably and forever altered, and ultimately life can be lost; morbidity, mortality and a myriad of opportunities are before me and I want to make a difference before I go.  After meeting this patient, I knew I could do this.


     In the semesters following Fundamentals, not only have a selected few classmates and I formed strong bonds, but I have also learned to connect with patients from all walks of life.  Initially, I turned to nursing as an avenue to earn a living, no more, no less.  Somewhere along the way I fell in love with the entire process – school, reading, writing, studying, exams, patients, the interaction with doctors and fellow nurses, the hospital setting… everything!  Beginning with the teachings imparted at lecture, up to and including incorporating some principals of the nurse theorists and philosophers, I have postulated an immature, unpolished ideation of how I will practice nursing; Cultural Sensitivity will be my anchoring cornerstone.


     In the semesters following my entrée into the Nursing Program, a selected few classmates and I have formed fledgling gossamer bonds of situation and commonality.  As we get to know each other, the bonds grow stronger each day and I am grateful to call them my friends.  At times these same students ask advice, share confidences and on many occasions we commiserate about the rigors of nursing school.  I guess being in possession of both business and life experience my classmates find me approachable.  Owning this role has allowed me to incorporate into myself yet another layer of experience that will add rich texture to the lexicon of my nursing knowledge.


     In retrospect, losing my corporate job was not the purported harbinger of grim tidings as initially thought.  Yes, at first I was devastated.  Corporate denizen was the only life I knew.  However, I chose not to let the confluence of extrinsic occurrences dictate my circumstances.  I chose to be an active participant in my own fate, to willfully architect a different outcome, be proactive and remodel my own future.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.