Marie’s Story on Her Personal Nursing Journey

Hey guys, I’m Marie. I’m with nursing.com and today you’re going to learn a little bit about my nursing journey. So Tammy’s here, she’s going to ask me some questions. I am so first Marie, why and how did you know you wanted to be a nurse? Good question. So,  I started out in a totally different career path and, had a really good friend who was a nurse and had her first job on an oncology floor. So she would tell me a lot about her experience. And I became really intrigued about nursing in general. It was just a totally unknown field for me. About the same time I had grandparents whose health was failing and I started to see how when you’re in poor health you lose dignity. And that was something that was really important for me to preserve, to help preserve people’s human dignity. 

Awesome. So what does your application process look like? So for me, since nursing was a second career, I had to submit like all my transcripts from when I went to school the first time. And,  along with that I applied simultaneously to two programs. One was an ADN program, which is associate degree of nursing. And then another one was a master’s program, which was this intensive program. And I just basically told myself I would get, I would accept whichever one accepted me. So the ADN did not accept me. And the master’s program did, the ADN list was so like the wait list was so long that I just decided not to do it. Awesome. So for you, what was the hardest part about school? So for me, the hardest part of nursing school, having already been through school once and having a degree in Spanish and business and international finance, I thought that nursing school would be a piece of cake. 

And the hardest part for me was getting over the shock of how difficult nursing school is. Okay. What is one thing that you wish somebody would have told you about nursing? So one thing I didn’t know going into nursing school is that, especially in the hospitals, there’s this system of hierarchy. It’s informal. Like it’s not really a real hierarchy, but it’s not official. But there’s a hierarchy and nurses are often placed at the bottom of that. So one thing I wish I would have known right out of school being a new nurse is that you can go against that. You don’t have to put yourself at the bottom as a nurse. Nurses are the front lines and the front lines are not the bottom of a hierarchy. So I wish that’s something that I would have known at the beginning. Yeah. What is one thing that you will never forget about your experience in nursing school? So this has stuck with me to this day. This is like many years later we had a, an off the wall kind of really interesting community health professor and she had this gigantic lecture class and this is not really related to like actual nursing clinicals or anything like that. But, I remember walking into class one day, huge lecture with like over a hundred students and the teacher put on a song, Oh, happy day. If you guys remember that song. And she played the full six minutes and 37 seconds and we all just sat there awkwardly going. 

That’s funny. Yeah. What is the most memorable patient story you can think of? So this is kind of sad, but  I work on medical surgical primarily and so we get a lot of patients who come in with these unspecified symptoms and they don’t know what they have. So they come to figure that out. And so one of my most memorable patients was a surgical patient who had a bunch of stuff, stomach pain,  and she had a very low paying job and not a very right career path or future ahead of her. And she was aging and she had all her family there and they had run some tests. And then I walked into her room to do an assessment and at the same time my phone rang and it was the surgeon. So I pick it up in front of the patient and he’s like, don’t tell Mrs. Smith this, but she has stomach cancer and she probably only has six weeks to live. 

And I was in the room looking at the patient who’s looking at me waiting for answers. And so I had to basically just say the surgeon called and he’s going to be in to tell you some information. So one thing I learned from that is don’t answer your phone in a patient room because you never know what kind of bomb is going to be dropped right then. Right. Yeah. Do you have any regrets? I think my big regret Tammy, is that I did not from the beginning really own the knowledge that I had as a nurse. And so I really feel like you need to grab a hold of the knowledge that you have because in nursing school you are adequately prepared to be a good nurse. And so from the start if students and new grad nurses can just be confident about the knowledge that they have, that’s going to help themselves. 

Yeah, totally. I agree with that summary. How do you personally balance work life? So I am fortunate to have a husband who can kind of watch the kids if I have to go to work. So, two things. One is when I go to work, I have him to take care of the children and just make sure things go well for the day. But then the other thing is to pick your battles. Like I can deal with a messy house because I have to go to work. So you just have to pick your battles and not have a perfect life. Yeah, that’s so true. Yeah. All right. So Marie, last question. What advice would you give to future nursing students? So I think one thing to remember as you go through nursing school is it’s going to seem impossible. You’re going to have your clinicals in your coursework and your lectures, and it’s going to feel totally overwhelming. You can do anything for a set amount of time and this will pass and you just have to get in it and just set your mind to it and do it. Yeah, totally. Thank you so much, Marie. Thank you, Tammy. So hopefully this helped you a little bit for your nursing journey and we want you guys to go out and be your best self today.