When I was eighteen, I learned I had endometriosis, a diagnosis that would shape many of my future experiences. Around the same time, I survived sexual assault, which led to a pregnancy I had planned to carry. I made the decision to embrace that life, but at six months, I suffered a miscarriage. The grief and physical pain were overwhelming, and for a long time, I carried the loss in silence, unsure how to move forward or find comfort. After I got married, the heartbreak continued. My husband and I faced miscarriage after miscarriage, each one leaving me with sorrow, frustration, and a profound sense of helplessness. These experiences forced me to confront my own vulnerability and to reflect deeply on the fragility of life and the complexity of the human body. They also taught me resilience. I learned that even when life feels unbearably heavy, it is possible to keep moving forward and find meaning in the pain. These losses have shaped who I am today in ways I could not have imagined. They made me deeply empathetic to the struggles that others carry quietly and inspired a strong desire to support women facing similar challenges. I understand the physical, emotional, and spiritual toll that complications and loss can take. I want to be someone who offers care, understanding, and hope. I want women to know they are not alone in their grief and that someone is present to advocate for them with kindness and compassion at every moment. Because of these experiences, I am pursuing a career in healthcare, specifically nursing. I want to be the person women can turn to when they feel afraid or uncertain, someone who provides medical support, emotional presence, and reassurance. My journey through loss has shaped my outlook on life. I value connection, compassion, and being fully present for others when they are most vulnerable. I also hope to inspire my future children to live with empathy and purpose. I want them to understand that hardship can be transformed into service and care for others. Choosing a career that nourishes both the heart and the soul is a lesson I hope they carry with them. Nursing allows me to walk alongside patients through their darkest moments, offering healing, presence, and compassion. It is the path I feel called to follow, and it is one I approach with both humility, purpose, and dedication.

I was born into the medical field, and in many ways it has shaped who I am long before I ever knew I wanted to be a nurse. My earliest memories are of walking hospital hallways, visiting my parents during their shifts, and learning from a young age that caring for others is both a responsibility and a gift. My mother worked full time in the Emergency Room while pregnant with triplets, and my father worked his way through medical school and residency. Watching them taught me the value of hard work, compassion, and showing up for people even when life is demanding. Those long hours in hospitals never felt scary or unfamiliar to me. Instead, they felt like a place where people went to be helped, comforted, and cared for, and I grew up wanting to be part of that world. When I began college in 2018, I also started working as a nursing assistant. I floated across many units and learned how much I loved patient care, no matter where I was assigned. I loved meeting new patients, learning their stories, and being someone they could rely on when they felt vulnerable. Then COVID 19 hit, and everything changed overnight. That period became one of the hardest and most defining times of my life, and it is the moment I most clearly saw how I could serve my community in a meaningful way. I was assigned to care for the first COVID patient at Holston Valley Medical Center. Because I was unmarried and did not have children, I was asked to take on responsibilities others could not safely assume at that time. I went into the room with medications, dressing changes, meals, and the full awareness that very little was known about the virus. From that point on, I became the COVID tech for both hospitals I worked at, often working six 17 hour shifts a week in both the ER and floor units. It was exhausting, frightening, and overwhelming, but it was also the clearest example of servitude I have ever experienced. Patients were isolated, terrified, and often facing their illnesses alone. I was sometimes the only person they saw for hours at a time. I learned that serving my community did not always look heroic. Sometimes it looked like holding someone’s hand through layers of PPE, offering a prayer when they asked, or simply staying present when they felt abandoned and afraid. My faith guided me through that time. I grew up with the commandment to care for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, and to treat every person with dignity and compassion. Those teachings grounded me when I felt tired or afraid, reminding me that service is sacred work and that every act of care, no matter how small, can change someone’s experience for the better.

I hope to contribute to my community as a nurse by being someone who meets people exactly where they are, especially in the moments when life feels the most uncertain. My earliest memories were formed in hospital hallways, waiting rooms, and residents lounges, and those experiences taught me that healthcare is not just about medicine. It is about presence, patience, and connection. I want to bring that same sense of comfort and familiarity to the people I serve, no matter what they are facing. During COVID 19, I saw firsthand how much people rely on nurses not only for medical care but for emotional support, reassurance, and advocacy. Working six 17 hour shifts a week and caring for some of the very first COVID patients in my area changed the way I view both nursing and community. I learned how powerful it can be simply to sit with someone, hold their hand, or speak gently when the world around them feels frightening. Those experiences shaped my understanding of what it truly means to serve others, and they are a major reason I feel called to return to nursing now. My Jewish faith is also central to how I hope to contribute. I grew up hearing the commandment to care for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, and to treat every person with the same compassion I would hope others would show me. Those teachings are woven into who I am. They remind me that caring for others is not just a career choice, but a responsibility and a privilege. In every patient, I see someone who deserves dignity, gentleness, and respect, and I hope to bring that sense of sacred responsibility into my practice every day. I also hope to give back through communication, education, and advocacy. With my background in Communication and Journalism, I want to help bridge the gap between medical information and patient understanding. I want the families I meet to feel informed, supported, and empowered, not confused or overwhelmed. Clear communication can change outcomes, reduce fear, and build trust, and I believe this is one of the strongest ways I can serve my community. Above all, I hope to be a nurse who brings comfort, steadiness, and kindness into spaces that often feel cold or intimidating. My dream is to strengthen my community not only by caring for illness, but by offering hope, reassurance, and compassion to every person who places their trust in me.

I was born into the medical field. In 2000, my mother was in nursing school while my father was finishing his undergraduate degree in preparation for medical school. They worked opposite shifts in the same hospital so one of them could always be home with us. On Friday nights, my siblings and I would meet my father in the hospital food court, beginning Shabbat together as a family even when he had to work. Hospitals were not intimidating places for me. They were extensions of home. My mother worked full time in the Emergency Room while pregnant with triplets so that my father could focus on medical school. Later, when he began residency and we moved to a new city, we would visit him in the residents lounge whenever his eighty hour workweeks allowed. Some of my earliest and fondest memories are of walking those halls and absorbing the rhythms of patient care long before I understood them. My father always encouraged me to pursue nursing, a stable and meaningful career that would give me both purpose and flexibility. When I started college in 2018, I took his advice. I began working as a nursing assistant on Pulmonary Med Surg, and because I was PRN, I floated almost every shift. I learned from Oncology, Orthopedics, and everything in between. I fell in love with patient care. Then COVID 19 changed everything. I cared for the first COVID patient at Holston Valley Medical Center when I was floated to another floor. Because I was unmarried and did not have children, I was sent in with medications, dressing changes, and meals. From that point forward, I became the COVID tech for both hospitals I worked at, full time in the ER and PRN on the floors, often working mandatory overtime that had me pulling six 17 hour shifts per week. Classes had moved online, and I found myself drowning between schoolwork and the emotional weight of the pandemic. Eventually, burned out and unable to continue my prerequisites, I shifted to Communication and Journalism in hopes of making a difference through storytelling. Yet even after stepping away, the pull of healthcare never left me. Five years later, I still feel most myself at the bedside. I love being the person patients meet at some of the lowest moments of their lives, the one who can offer a kind word, a prayer, or simply presence. I love showing families that not every part of a hospital stay is frightening or lonely. My Jewish faith plays a profound role in why I continue to feel called to this field. I grew up hearing the commandment to care for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, and to treat every person with dignity and compassion. Those teachings are not abstract ideals to me. They are an active responsibility, a way of living out my faith through service. In every patient I meet, I see someone entrusted to my care, someone deserving of gentleness, advocacy, and respect. That sense of sacred duty is what keeps drawing me back to nursing and to the healing professions as a whole. My dream is to return to nursing, work while raising my children, and eventually pursue a higher degree. For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to midwifery, the unique blend of science, intuition, and sacred trust that defines the field. It is the path I envisioned as a child walking the halls of my parents hospital, and it remains the path I feel called to now. P.S. (Thank you for reading my story)