I have been an LPN for 15 years. I have finally decided to get my RN. I have always desired to help people. I have helped people my entire existence. Becoming a Nurse is the only thing that made sense once I graduated high school. The road to get me where I am has been a recent event. I took an assignment and soon discovered that I truly was limited in my capabilities. Most jobs use their employees to the maximum capacity. This assignment definitely uses their employees to the minimum of their full potential. In my 15 years as an LPN I have never seen anything of this nature. I was at this assignment less than a month when I realized if I truly wanted to benefit from my career and feel 100 percent at my best that I must enroll in college. When I am Nursing I want my patients to always feel confident that they have nothing to worry about. I want them to know that I am always going to advocate for them. To best do that we need Nurses to always remember that the medical world is always changing. We need Nurses to always remember to think outside the box while caring for our patients. I want to be that light, that inspiration to all Nurses as well as future Nurses. While some may see their community as the area they live in. This is not the case for me. I see the world as my community. I want to help everyone. I have worked all over the nation. I also participate in medical missions. I recently was the team leader and enjoyed guiding the new volunteers. It was an eye opener to see that you can always learn from someone else in any form of work that you do. One could look at that group of volunteers being your community and teaching them that Nursing in your home base is far different from where you are volunteering and how the two differ. Teaching you to incorporate your skills into the limited resources you have available. I hope to continue to contribute to the medical missions patients in a better way as I advance my career, my knowledge. I hope this helps me incorporate more knowledgeable teachings to my fellow Nurse as well as my patients. I hope to continue to spread compassionate Nursing in every aspect possible.

I have been an LPN for 15 years. Why I stopped at LPN has multiple factors. I have always been comfortable with being an LPN, but have always been frustrated with the limitations. Working full time and going to class full time has been the main factor in preventing me from furthering my career. I have always loved helping others my entire life. It truly makes me happier. Selfless acts always brings a smile to my soul. I work a lot. I discovered medical missions in 2018. I have been with Nurses With Purpose since that discovery. I recently became team leader and absolutely loved guiding the new volunteers. While doing clinical all them years ago I did spend time in many parts of the hospital. Nothing spoke to me like the ICU did. I have always desired to be in the ICU. I feel like it is more intimate and compassionate Nursing. I have put myself behind in accomplishing that goal for 15 years. My recent assignment finally gave me the courage to enroll back in college. I was at this assignment less than a month when I enrolled in college. Being a non-traditional student has made me realize I can absolutely accomplish anything and when I finally graduate I know I will finally be able to become the ICU Nurse I have always wanted to be. With all of my experience I hope this drives my knowledge further. I hope to succeed in the ICU and branch out into the CVICU as my grandmother had many heart problems and I want to honor her by doing something in the Cardiac ICU eventually. I feel like my experience will help me be a better ICU Nurse as I have seen that every human body is different. I feel like this makes you really think outside the box when you are caring for your patients. I want my patients to have complete trust in my abilities that I will always take care of them to the best of my abilities and that I will always advocate for them no matter the circumstance. I do not think I have really prepared myself for this change. I think I have just dived right in head first. My many changes in my career may have helped prepare me as it has shown me how adaptable and/or flexible that I am actually capable of. I just want to shine a light for anyone that comes into my path and hopefully inspire them whether that be patients or co-workers.

I have been an LPN for 15 years. I have always loved helping people my entire life. It was never a question when I chose my career path on what I should do. It has always been my passion to help someone. The inspiration to further my career came from my recent assignment. I have so much experience in Nursing. I have never been very limited in what I can do. My recent assignment has their professionals setup in something I am not used to. Their setup made me very limited in what I am actually allowed to do. They also belittle you with each title that is not a Registered Nurse. I worked there less than a month and immediately enrolled myself into college. I felt so out of place with this assignment that it was time to make a drastic change in my life and career. I have always wanted to be an ICU Nurse and this finally gave me the motivation I needed. I want to prove to myself that I can do anything that I put my mind to. I desire to make everyone feel included and appreciated. Everyone is important in any role of Nursing they are at. That includes Certified Nursing Assistants. While certain jobs make you aware of your limitations this recent assignment made me feel completely useless and it really stressed me out. I knew if I truly wanted to help people that I had to go back to school. Helping people has always been apart of who I am and that has always inspired me to be the best Nurse I can be. As a child I always wanted to be a Doctor. As I got older I knew that I wanted to have opportunities to change it up a bit. In Nursing, you have so many options that I knew I would never get tired of working. 15 years in and I desire more opportunities that are not available to me as an LPN. I have to advance my career now and get into the ICU where I feel I should be. I also feel advancing my degree that I can show any team I work with that we are all important in the role we play. I want to inspire people to better themselves and have an all around great experience as we work side by side. I desire to continue to be a strong patient advocate and show others we are here to be compassionate and the patient will always be our main priority as a Nurse. I discovered this scholarship opportunity on Bold.org.

I have been an LPN for 15 years. While I have always wanted to continue my education it is difficult to work full time and attend a traditional Nursing program full time. I have never been bothered by being an LPN as I do not feel very limited in my opportunities that I have had. My entire life I have always helped people in many forms. I do not think that I had an “aha” moment as I have always loved helping people. You could say my “aha” moment is this is the only career choice that makes sense to my life. I have had many experiences in my career. I love to venture out in my options. While I am mostly working in the Nursing homes with the elderly I do love taking the time to experience other avenues of Nursing. I have experience in clinics, long term care, rehabilitation, hospitals, as well as corrections. I have been traveling as a Nurse for 13 years. One could say my “aha” moment for finally committing to advancing my Nursing role would be from my most recent assignment. While I love working with the elderly to prevent what we Nurses know as burnout I decided to go back to corrections for awhile. I love corrections. I have had many assignments in corrections. My recent experience has not been the same as all of my other correction assignments. I felt very limited and belittled. I finished a shift and went home and was like this is my time to go back to school. This assignment showed me that I have so much more potential than what I have or am allowed to do. All of my experience and skills meant nothing in this assignment and gave me the strength, passion, and desire to finally enroll in college again. I do not want to be limited in my Nursing ability any longer. I want all the opportunities that I can have. I want to be the best Nurse I can be and experience every possible aspect of Nursing I can do without limitations. I have been doing medical missions since 2018 and love how appreciated the patients make you feel. I recently became a team leader and I have absolutely enjoyed guiding the new mission volunteers. They have made me feel like I have an even greater purpose and advancing my career will boost that opportunity even more. While going back to school will be very challenging as many things have changed from 15 years ago; I can do it. My last assignment has put a fire and passion deep within my soul to prove I am more than what you perceive. I not only have to prove this to the people who see the limit, but I have to prove to myself that I can rise above and accomplish anything I set my mind to do.

I’ve been an LPN for 15 years. I have been a travel LPN for 13 years. I have always loved helping others in any way that I can. I love the experiences on the road and the people I have met as well as worked with. It really gives you an open mind and helps you adapt to the forever changing medical world. I finally decided to advance my career as I want more experience. I want to teach future Nurses how to better advocate for their patients. I want them to understand that the medical world will continually change as advancement in medicine is always being discovered. I want to guide them to be strong in their Nursing ability and to always remain compassionate towards their patients. That is why I got into doing the medical missions as I felt it would be a more intimate, compassionate style of Nursing. I felt like this would teach and guide me to become an even better Nurse in the future. I want to get into ICU Nursing. I more specifically want to get in CVICU as my grandmother had many heart problems. She had valve replacement twice (6 weeks apart). The first valve replacement failed as the hospital had “thinned” her blood out causing the mechanical valve to “blow” resulting in the second mechanical valve placement. She later had to have a pacemaker placed as well. She told them many times something was wrong with this pacemaker and they never listened. She would tell them every appointment she could feel the pacemaker kick or jerk in her chest. They did not listen for a long time. They finally changed the settings and it never functioned properly. Her battery on the pacemaker did not last the life expectancy and had to be replaced. The second battery did not last as long and they finally listened to her that something was wrong. She had to have the pacemaker replaced. I want to better advocate for patients that tell their providers something is not right. She did live way past life expectancy considering the circumstances she faced. I absolutely love and enjoy medical missions and I have been apart of Nurses With Purpose since 2018. I recently was the team leader and loved managing a group of volunteers. I loved guiding them and showing them the differences of having advanced resources as compared to limited resources. The experience each time is heartwarming.