Last first day.

Today was my last first day of school. Every autumn since 1985 I have carefully put on my favorite new outfit, gathered up my binders and pencils, and headed to a classroom for the first day of a new school year. It occurred to me the other day that perhaps this is why fall is my favorite season. Fall to me feels like a fresh start - with the crisp wind and leaves come new opportunities to learn, to grow.

It's funny to me that after eight years of college (all as undergraduate, mind you), I will still be, in some ways, a service industry worker. Nursing, though an intellectually demanding profession, is still viewed as a caregiving role. Historically, nurses were primarily caregivers, but when nurses moved from the home to hospitals the need for knowledge grew, and the programs teaching nurses grew to accommodate that. Today nurses are well equipped with knowledge about the human body, illnesses, pharmacology, and medical technology, as well as how to foster growth, adaptation and healing in patients and families. Nurses utilize that knowledge to provide safe, competent care in today's highly complex health care systems. Studies have beat into the ground that good nursing care equals good patient outcomes, and poor or understaffed/undereducated nursing care equals poorer patient outcomes and higher patient mortality rates; yet somehow nurses still aren't truly accepted as an educated, important member of the healthcare team. (More on this issue/rant as time allows...) There's a push by professional nursing organizations to work on changing the perception of nursing, which I'll contribute to any way I can.
Whatever the national views on nursing, I am excited to begin my career in this field. The opportunity to care for people during such times of need in their lives is an honor. My goals as a nurse will be to ease suffering, provide knowledge, encourage growth, and foster independence. I am excited to help people.

I haven't ruled out graduate school in the future - I don't see myself as a hospital staff nurse for my entire career. There are so many career options for nurses, and I want to continue to learn and to grow. I don't know where my career will take me, but I'm very interested in the possibility of teaching nursing. The nursing shortage extends up through the nursing educators - there just aren't enough of them to go around. And somehow, this idea seems to bring my life full circle, like perhaps it's where I'm supposed to go. That will be a distant possibility, as the only way to teach nursing is to be a nurse first. Experience is the best teaching tool for a nursing professor. Today was the first day of my last semester as a nursing student, and from here the possibilities are endless.