How I Made A Difference
Shannon O’Roak
NSG 307
Professor Holt & Blais
November 19th, 2021
Going into my first clinical experience, I felt a collection of emotions including excitement, worry, anticipation, and determination. I was very unsure of what I would feel, see, or experience while participating in clinical. I remember pushing my worries aside, so I could focus on the positive feelings of excitement and determination. I felt proud and accomplished by the end of clinical when I was able to talk with patients and take vital signs with ease. There was one particular patient that I felt I especially made a difference with, which was during the first few weeks of my clinical experience.
My clinical instructor came up to my classmate and I to tell us we would be assigned to a patient with many different diagnoses and who was receiving multiple treatments. At first, this task seemed too great to me, because I was nervous it would be too much for me to handle that early in clinical. I managed to pull myself together and enter the patient’s room to take their vitals. The patient had just received pain medication and seemed relieved compared to the previous times I’d walked past their room doing other various tasks. The patient was more than willing to show my classmate and I all the different “tubes” as they called them that were attached to their body. I couldn’t help but think of how resilient this patient must be to endure so much, yet still be able to carry on a conversation about their family and friends. This patient’s life had been permanently changed, and they accepted all the changes that came like it was a new challenge to overcome.
I was able to teach all the students in my clinical group about my patient, since there were many different teaching points that were relevant to our classes. My patient enjoyed showing off their “tubes” to my classmates and loved having us there to talk to. My patient thanked me before I left clinical that day, and I could tell how much a simple conversation had meant to them. I had never been the little girl who always knew she wanted to be a nurse, but in that moment, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I didn’t realize until my clinical this semester how much a nurse can really impact a patient’s life, and that’s the kind of nurse I will always strive to be.
