Quinn, RN
This time last year I was sleep-deprived, anxiety-ridden, and near my breaking point. Why?
A year ago today I was writing my NCLEX exam- the standardized nursing exam that is your golden ticket to becoming a registered nurse.
On the morning of June 16th, 2021, as I sat in my bedroom in Ottawa, I felt my phone buzz and my screen light up with the email that would ultimately decide my future. (Ya, it sounds dramatic, but the pressure of passing or failing the NCLEX feels life-altering- like everything you’ve ever worked for, hangs in the balance of one word…Pass or Fail)
I couldn’t look- I called my mom upstairs to open the email.
I’d passed.
Relief and disbelief- that’s what I felt ground my body.
After years of exams, tests, projects, clinical hours, tears, and triumphs I could finally call myself Quinn, RN.
This time last year, I achieved my goal of becoming an RN; a goal I didn’t even realize I’d wanted until later in life. Because, in all honesty, Nursing wasn’t even on my radar until my senior year of high school.
I never wanted to be a nurse. I knew a lot of people in Nursing School that felt destined to become a nurse- this was a feeling that I could not relate to.
I thought I was supposed to be a doctor (classic choice). I was always good at the sciences, I loved genetics and I thought that I would be a geneticist. When I was applying for my undergrad, I applied for mostly Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology and Genetics. That was my program of choice. So… how the hell did I end up taking Nursing?
At the time, I knew that I wanted to go away for school, I knew that I wanted to go to the East Coast and after seeing the X-ring on every one of my high school teacher’s right hand for four years, I really fell in love with St.Francis Xavier University.
I wanted the small classroom sizes, the X ring, and the sense of community it created. Unfortunately, Molecular Biology and Genetics is not an undergraduate option at St.FX… So, I applied for a regular Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
I thought, “Well, if I take Nursing, I can still apply to medical school, but I’ll have a great background in healthcare and if I don’t get into medical school, I will have a job right out of university.”
When I heard back from my schools, it was a really hard decision. I knew practically nothing about Nursing and everyone said that if I chose it, I’d be “changing beds and cleaning people” for my four years of undergrad… and then for the rest of my life.
But I wanted to go to StFX so badly, that I chose Nursing. I did not want to be a nurse. I wanted to go to StFX…
When I started Nursing School, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I didn’t know the hard work and determination it would take to be in such a driven field of healthcare. Nursing School had its own learning curves and adjustments, which made me doubt my choice of career just about every year.
You see, I didn’t understand Nursing School fully, and I didn’t know if I had what it took to be a nurse.
When I was in Nursing school I categorized the students into two main groups:
Bumper Sticker Nurses:
Nursing students that live and breathe Nursing. These are the Nursing students that change their Facebook profile photo to have whatever Nursing sticker there is available- or they 100% have a sticker of a heart with an EKG line running through it on their laptop, water bottle, and probably a sweater of some sort. These Nursing students are die-hard Nursing students.
Non-bumper Sticker Nurses:
These are less intense Nursing students. These Nursing students are there to go to school and have fun and graduate. Nursing isn’t a lifestyle, it’s a degree, the same as English or Human Kinetics.
**Of course with every group there are outliers, but I found that, typically, Nursing students could fit into one of the two above groups. **
Personally, I was a Non-bumper Sticker Nurse. I am proud to be a nurse, but I do not advertise my job to the world (which is my personal decision). I think both types of Nursing students make great nurses- I will however say that Bumper Sticker Nursing students can be a lot sometimes for people who don’t share the same level of passion right off the bat…
You see, Nursing students, in general, are whiny. They complain about almost everything. And, maybe that is how students are in other programs too, but I found that Nursing students wanted the easiest way out ALL THE TIME. God forbid two assignments were due on the same day. They could argue just about anything to get their way. I found this really frustrating because in the real world no one is going to hold your hand.
When it comes to Nursing schools… every single Nursing school is different and has its pros and cons. Every Nursing school has amazing and terrible professors. And, every Nursing school is hard.
I learned, after many years, that this is not a program for the faint-hearted. I doubted my abilities every year in Nursing school. I worked hard and I sacrificed a lot of Friday nights to stay in and study, while Business students were partying.
It’s a hard program because it is a hard job and they make it difficult on purpose- to see who can tough it out.
For 4 out of my 5 years of Nursing school, I was unsure if I’d made the right choice. It wasn’t until I worked in the Emergency Department in Antigonish & the NICU in Halifax that I really got the full nursing experience and fell in love with nursing.
I began to understand the true Nursing profession- the care and compassion and the amount of work, intelligence, and resilience it takes to be a nurse. I thrived in the buzz of the hospital, working in a team environment and making genuine connections with patients and families while helping care for them/their loved ones.
In this past year, my first year of being a registered nurse, I have taken the time to reflect on my experience, and here is what I’ve learned:
1.Don’t settle for a Safety Net
Right out of Nursing school there is a rush to get a job. There is a rush to settle into a spot, any spot, in any hospital as long as it is a job. I had friends that took the first jobs offered to them, just for their security. I did the complete opposite- I gambled. I took the risk of not having a position right out of university in order to work in a field I was passionate about and knew I wanted to work in. My field (NICU) is competitive and there was a chance I wouldn’t have a job after school, but my happiness meant more to me than settling for a safety net and working on a unit that would make me miserable.
It takes faith and courage to jump into something without a safety net- but, as I’ve said before, the best things in life exist outside our comfort zones… which leads me to #2
2.Do what you LOVE
Please for the love of GOD choose a nursing field that YOU LOVE. YOU! Not your friend, cousin, parents… YOU. Nursing is a stressful job and if you are miserable while at work because you aren’t passionate about your job, your co-workers, or your patients, then you are only hurting yourself. So really invest in yourself and your happiness and try with all your heart to choose a type of nursing that lights your soul on fire. (And let’s be honest, this goes beyond career- people should practice this with all parts of life)
3.The people you work with DO MATTER
Now, with all that being said, you could end up in the field of nursing that you love, but if you don’t have a supportive team it could all be for nothing. As a nurse, we rely so much on our co-workers and on collaboration and cooperation. If you work with people who are not supportive, who are scattered, and who only look out for themselves, leaving you feeling unsafe and alone… you may not be in the right place.
I was beyond lucky to work with a group of incredible nurses, nurse practitioners, and doctors who make coming to work every day feel like a dream. Their attitudes radiate positivity and everyone is willing to help one another. I feel safe going to work, which I never take for granted.
So, remember the people you work with do matter.
4.Take care of Yourself
“ Your first year of nursing will be the hardest year of your life” …
if I had a dollar for every time I heard that from a professor or a new grad RN during Nursing school, I could have afforded my textbooks.
This sentence was the definition of fear for new grad nurses. And honestly, I hate it.
Your first year of nursing will be hard, but it ALL depends on 3 things:
Your perspective
Where you work/ who you work with
How you take care of yourself
You need to have a positive attitude, not just in your first year but in your career. Anyone can see the bad in a bad situation, it’s looking for the good and choosing to see the good > the bad that makes the difference.
If you work on a unit that is understaffed, unsupportive and unsafe, with co-workers that are burnt out and far and few, your year will be harder. Will it be impossible? No. Will every day be terrible? No. Will it be hard- yes…
But if you take care of yourself and you prioritize your mental well-being and overall health, days will get easier. It can be as easy as taking the time to go outside for 30 minutes, watching an episode of your favorite show, or coming home and having a nice glass of wine.
5.Be kind, Be gentle and Be grateful to yourself
There will be days where you’ll feel burnt out… maybe even weeks. There will be days that you feel like you didn’t do enough for your team or your patients- where you feel like you let everyone, including yourself, down. There will be days when you feel so overwhelmed that the only thing to do is cry. That is the reality.
On the days like these that passed this year I told myself to remember that we are all human, we all make mistakes, we all need time to process and we are ALL just doing the best we can with what we have. In my first year of nursing, I learned to be kind to myself and patient with myself.
Every day I start my day with a song that brings me joy and I list all the things I am grateful for. I fill my mind with gratitude and happiness so that is the attitude I carry into my work. Then, I list all the great things that WILL happen that day- whether it be that I will laugh a lot or that I will learn a new skill.
At the end of my day, I would do my roses, buds, and thorns and reflect on the highs and lows of the day. Reflection allows me to appreciate the good and learn from the difficulties of my day.
I’m not perfect, and some days I just needed sleep and to be alone, but by keeping a positive outlook, the first year of nursing was not as terrible as people made it out to be.
6.Nursing is a largely stigmatized profession
I’ve learned in my first year of being a nurse that there are a lot of people that truly don’t appreciate or understand what it is that I do as a nurse. There is still this large misconception that nurses are a supportive role who only clean bedpans and feed patients. While that is a part of our scope of practice, that is not what nurses do.
Nurses are the core of the health care system. The care we have for our patients is full of compassion and competence. We have a wide set of skills including giving medications, injections, physical assessments, mental health support, and understanding everything from the social determinants of health to diagnosis, treatment and plans of care. We are diverse in our skill-set and our knowledge surrounding health and the health care systems. We are taught about pharmacology, public health, anatomy and physiology, chemistry, genetics, nursing theory, pediatrics, end-of-life care, maternity, trauma-informed care, mental health…the list goes on. We understand the human body on a microbiological level to a systemic level.
Many people also believe that nursing is a female profession. Which is also disappointing. Nursing is an inclusive profession, just as every profession should be. However, there is this idea in our culture that nursing is a women’s role. Sadly, not enough men enroll in Nursing school and our hospitals/clinics/healthcare system is lacking in male representation. Our job is to care for people, and our population would benefit greatly from more male nurses. The stigma surrounding nursing as a gender-specific profession is a difficult hurdle to overcome and requires people to be open to change and to open their minds to the reality of our health care system.
7.Eliminate the word FAILURE from your vocabulary
I learned in my first year of nursing how much I genuinely HATE the word failure. What an awful word to say about yourself or anyone for that matter. It is one word that we give so much weight too. We let it completely destroy our confidence and ruin our drive. This word haunted my while I studied for my NCLEX exam.
“What if I fail”
Failing my NCLEX felt like it would be the end of my world. And watching everyone else in my class succeed and pass, only added more pressure to do the same.
Failure only has power if we let it.
Really there is no such thing as failure- you either succeed or you try again or you move on to what’s next.
Failure is a word that makes people feel like the result is concrete… but life will go on. Is it a step back? yes. Is it the result you wanted? no. Do you have the ability to get up and try again or try something new? Absolutely.
Whatever is meant to be will be. If at first you don’t succeed (you know where I’m going with this ;p)
Don’t let the word failure keep you from trying. It’s just a word. Your life is going to be full of great and terrible things and choosing to continue, knowing not everything will always go to plan… that’s called living.
8.The Opportunities are Endless
One of the big reasons why I fell in love with nursing is because of the endless opportunities the career provides. Not only are there hundreds of different career options, but you can be a nurse anywhere in the world. Some places are more difficult than others, but really, nurses are used all over the world.
Do you want to work in a hospital? There is a job for you.
In an operating room? There is a job for you.
In a walk-in clinic? There is a job for you.
In a youth center? There is a job for you.
In a school, university or business? There is a job for you.
Overseas with non-profits or in a health care facility? There is a job for you.
In a rural community? Guess what… there is a job for you.
So dream big, because you can.
Where I am now…
For the past year, I have had the incredible opportunity to work as a registered nurse in two different settings. First, I was a nurse at a camp during the summer, while during the year I developed my skills as a Neonatal Intensive Care Nurse. I learned so much from both experiences and I will be continuing to pursue both fields in the future.
I found my passion for nursing in Neonatal and Maternal Care. I love working with the families and being a support for them at the start of a difficult chapter in their life. Our unit can see sad days and feel heartbreak and loss with our families and patients. Our unit can also see joy, resilience, beauty, and miracles, and families go home with the resources they need to have a successful, healthy baby and family. I am lucky to work where I do, my patients teach me to love and gratitude every day, and although I am only a small part of their lives, I like to think I can bring joy to their days whenever possible.
So, after a year of learning, adjusting, reflecting, and caring… I can say that I am beyond glad that I am a registered nurse. I love my job, I am grateful that I love my job, and I can’t wait to see where this career takes me.
