"I'm sorry, but Ah-Gong (Taiwanese word for "paternal grandfather") won't be able to make it to your wedding." These were the last words my grandpa wanted to convey to me shortly before he passed on March 10th, 2023. Amidst the flurry of activities preparing for traditional Taiwanese funeral service rites which spanned for several weeks, it was difficult to fully process the finality of his absence. I last saw him 3 months ago, a shadow of his former self, in the ICU at Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University Hospital. He had suffered a sudden stroke which triggered various medical complications, prolonging his hospital stay. Despite the endotracheal tube in his mouth, he eagerly motioned for the nurse to provide a clipboard and marker so that he could communicate. He wrote vigorously in English, writing "UW", "Seattle", and "Proud" onto the paper while pointing at me. I immediately turned pink. My Ah-Gong is boasting about my education to the hospital staff even while fighting for his life in the hospital ward. As the 30-minute visitation time drew to an end, he looked me straight in the eyes and gestured to the word "proud" again. My heart sank, and I fought back tears knowing that I might not see him again. "You have to get well soon so that you can walk me down the aisle," I urged him before I was escorted out of the ICU. My wedding reception is just around the corner, and Ah-Gong had bragged multiple times to his neighbors about walking his granddaughter down the aisle on her wedding day. Little did I know that Ah-Gong would succumb to his illness months later, shuffled from one hospital to the next due to a combination of national healthcare policy limitations and the debilitating nature of his post-stroke medical complications. Ah-Gong had always urged me to pursue higher education growing up, nagging me to accumulate more healthcare experience hours or asking me how my nursing applications are going during FaceTime video calls. I knew that the source of his care came from hardship. He grew up in poverty and was cared for by his single mother, working multiple jobs to make ends meet after college. He prided himself on the success of his grandchildren, and I was no exception. I want to continue to make him proud. Now enrolled in Seattle University’s Advanced Practice Nursing Immersion - Doctor of Nursing Practice (APNI-DNP), Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) track, I long to make a positive impact on the world by expanding healthcare access to the medically underserved as a future FNP. I aspire to become an FNP who will exceed general duties; I will advocate for patients who have been historically medically underserved and remove barriers that restrict healthcare accessibility. As a nursing leader, I hope to do so through public health policy engagement on local and nationwide levels and personally hold myself accountable to fight for a more just, inclusive world in my future practice; a world where healthcare accessibility becomes a universal right regardless of a person's background. For example, this may look like educating patients on available financial assistance resources, making professional translation services more accessible for non-English speaking or disabled patients, coordinating referrals to social services, etc. Thank you so much for considering my scholarship application. While my Ah-Gong will not be able to walk me down the wedding aisle, I am determined to honor his memory by giving it my all in nursing school.

I reminisce witnessing patient care for the first time: my mother, a registered nurse, was changing the wound dressing of a middle-aged Hispanic woman with poorly controlled diabetes mellitus. Though there was evidently a language barrier, I marveled at the intangible trust established between nurses and their patients. Her patient had a festering, unresolved diabetic foot ulcer, and planned to undergo surgical intervention soon. As my mother demonstrated proper wound care to the patient’s family, I looked on, bright-eyed. I thought to myself, “This is it! I want to treat people when I grow up.” Through this introduction to the world of medicine, I saw how nurses step into another’s world to wage war against disease, restore quality of life and challenge death’s natural course; and I too, desire to do the same. Now enrolled in Seattle University’s Advanced Practice Nursing Immersion - Doctor of Nursing Practice (APNI-DNP), Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) track, I feel emboldened by the fact that my nursing dreams have become reality. As a future nursing professional, I am ready to continue to follow in my mother’s footsteps to become a compassionate and just nurse. More importantly, I long to make a difference through my nursing career by expanding healthcare access to the medically underserved as a future FNP. I observed the urgent need for primary care services for people affected by health care disparities while volunteering as a certified nursing assistant (CNA) at Lahai Health, a non-profit preventative health clinic for medically uninsured and low-income patients, during the peak of COVID-19. In a nation where there is already a primary care physician shortage, the medical needs of those that fall through the gaps in the American healthcare system due to socioeconomic hardships are even more pressing. As a CNA, it felt personally fulfilling and meaningful to serve patients that walk into the clinic, but I felt restricted in meeting their needs because of my limited scope of practice. I yearned to go beyond the glass ceiling of caregiving and learn the medical knowledge and skills necessary to treat and diagnose patients, build long-lasting relationships with families and equip patients with the knowledge to maintain healthy lifestyles. This led me to pursue and enroll in Seattle University's APNI-DNP program. I aspire to become a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) who will exceed general duties; I will advocate for patients who have been historically medically underserved and remove barriers that restrict healthcare accessibility. As a nursing leader, I hope to do so through public health policy engagement on local and nationwide levels and personally hold myself accountable to fight for a more just, inclusive world in my future practice; a world where healthcare accessibility becomes a universal right regardless of a person's background. For example, this may look like educating patients on available financial assistance resources, making professional translation services more accessible for non-English speaking or disabled patients, coordinating referrals to social services, etc. I deeply admire Brandon Tyler Castinado's short, yet impactful presence in touching the lives of so many while serving his country as a soldier, and later on, as a registered nurse. Though I did not have the blessing to know him in person, I could tell that he was someone incredibly courageous. I feel inspired that he chose to fix his eyes on other hurting strangers and helped them despite his inner struggle with depression. I hope to honor his memory and pick up his baton in helping others as a future FNP.

“Do you have any pain?,” I asked. I held up a laminated printout of a visual analog scale to the patient, a young Chinese woman new to our volunteer clinic. She tentatively stared back at me with a look of confusion on her face. Sensing her discomfort, I attempted to communicate differently. “You mei you na li tong?.” I repeated more shyly in Mandarin Chinese, embarrassed by my broken Taiwanese dialect. I had not spoken this language for so long that the words felt strange, almost foreign, on my tongue. The woman’s eyes widened with relief at the sound of a familiar language and carefully inspected the sheet. She then pointed to the frowning, orange emoticon indicating a pain level of 6/10. Nostalgia hit me like a wave during my interaction with this particular patient - our shared culture reminded me of my childhood home. My parents are first-generation immigrants who surrendered their comfortable life on the tiny island of Taiwan to secure a better education, and thus better future, for their children. Their sacrifice eventually allowed me to attend university, then settle down in Seattle. After the woman finished her appointment, she thanked me warmly, her confidence restored. I’m humbled by how simple gestures of personalized communication and shared language can become a source of consolation to patients from AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) backgrounds. I hope to make a difference in the AAPI community by promoting healthcare equity for the medically underserved as a future Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) leader. New patients often walked through my volunteer clinic’s doors harboring fears due to past negative healthcare experiences and historical medical underrepresentation. Oftentimes, patients are largely non-English speaking immigrants, disabled, low-wage manual laborers, single mothers and/or drug abusers. Giving empathetic care as a certified nursing assistant (CNA), while acknowledging my own unconscious biases, has pressed me to approach each patient with open-mindedness in response to cultural and/or linguistic differences. I believe that exercising the values of culturally sensitive humility, self-reflective integrity and unbiased compassion encourages honest dialogue between patients and providers and promotes cultural diversity within a healthcare facility. Furthermore, it is important to not just treat patients, but also to cultivate human development through patient counseling. Through counseling, patients regain a sense of control in their own care and are equipped with the knowledge they need to make well-informed medical decisions regarding their prognosis. As a Taiwanese-American, my impression of my east Asian cultural identity had felt like an eroding stone pillar, buffeted by the turbulent forces of American soil that I have grown to affectionately call home. With exposures to Taiwan constrained to long summer vacations sheltering at my aunts’ air-conditioned high-rise apartment suite, away from the sweltering heat waves, there was a general sense of disconnect. Taiwanese culture admittedly felt more like my parents’ cultural belonging rather than my own, and more often than not my American sensibilities felt attacked by the intrusive comments that pertain to my body image, broken dialect, and preference for hamburgers rather than Asian delicacies. As I grew older, however, and learned how to navigate the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), engage in serious conversations with both my parents and relatives that transcend addressing my practical needs and fell in love with the beauty of Taiwan’s mountains and easygoing way of life, my heart softened. I’ve come to appreciate the way that care is indirectly expressed, in embracing deeply personal questions that used to unsettle me and instead seeing them as rare opportunities to let family into my life. Though the Taiwanese cultural side of my identity continues to erode as I’ve married and settled in the city of Issaquah, Washington with my husband and houseplants, there is now an appreciation and resolve to hold both my Taiwanese and American cultures close. I now embark on the new adventure of pursuing my doctorate for FNP studies at Seattle University with the determination to implement values that promote cross-cultural dialogues, trustworthiness, and preservation of human dignity and respect within my practice as a future nursing leader. Thank you for your consideration and time towards my scholarship application!

I reminisce witnessing patient care for the first time: my mother, a registered nurse, was changing the wound dressing of a middle-aged Hispanic woman with poorly controlled diabetes mellitus. Though there was evidently a language barrier, I marveled at the intangible trust established between nurses and their patients. Her patient had a festering, unresolved diabetic foot ulcer, and planned to undergo surgical intervention soon. As my mother demonstrated proper wound care to the patient’s family, I looked on, bright-eyed. I thought to myself, “This is it! I want to treat people when I grow up.” Through this introduction to the world of medicine, I saw how nurses step into another’s world to wage war against disease, restore quality of life and challenge death’s natural course; and I too, desire to do the same. Now enrolled in Seattle University’s Advanced Practice Nursing Immersion - Doctor of Nursing Practice (APNI-DNP), Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) track, I feel emboldened by the fact that my nursing dreams have become reality. As a future nursing professional, I am ready to continue to follow in my mother’s footsteps to become a compassionate and just nurse. More importantly, I long to make a difference through my nursing career by expanding healthcare access to the medically underserved as a future FNP. I witnessed the urgent need for primary care services for people affected by health care disparities while volunteering as a certified nursing assistant (CNA) at Lahai Health, a non-profit preventative health clinic for medically uninsured and low-income patients, during the peak of COVID-19. In a nation where there is already a primary care physician shortage, the medical needs of those that fall through the gaps in the American healthcare system due to socioeconomic hardships are even more pressing. As a CNA, it felt personally fulfilling and meaningful to serve patients that walk into the clinic, but I felt restricted in meeting their needs because of my limited scope of practice. I yearned to go beyond the glass ceiling of caregiving and learn the medical knowledge and skills necessary to treat and diagnose patients, build long-lasting relationships with families and equip patients with the knowledge to maintain healthy lifestyles. This led me to pursue and enroll in Seattle University's APNI-DNP program. I aspire to become a Family Nurse Practitioner who will exceed general duties; I will advocate for patients who have been historically medically underserved and remove barriers that restrict healthcare accessibility. As a nursing leader, I hope to do so through public health policy engagement on local and nationwide levels and personally hold myself accountable to fight for a more just, inclusive world in my future practice; a world where healthcare accessibility becomes a universal right regardless of a person's background. For example, this may look like educating patients on available financial assistance resources, making professional translation services more accessible for non-English speaking or disabled patients, coordinating referrals to social services, etc. Thank you so much for considering my scholarship application, and I hope you will support me in the fight against American healthcare access inequality together.