I would like to think I’ve always been a caring and compassionate person when I was younger that was towards animals. Anytime I would see an animal on the street. I was always asking if we could pull over and at least feed it or give it some water or of course try to take it home with us. As I grew up, that compassion transferred more onto people. When I was 15, I had a cyst on my ovary that resulted in the surgery where that ovary had to be removed, and I was so scared that something would go wrong while I was on the table and my life would be changed forever. Encouraging words from my family and the doctor did help, but the encouraging words of the nurse that was taking care of me in the hospital was really what eased my mind. I don’t know why, but these words from a stranger, completely changed, my outlook of what was going to happen. She was so kind and caring in the way she got to know me. She didn’t toss a bunch of medical jargon in my face and then try to dumb it down like the doctor and she wasn’t saying you’ll be okay like my dad, she explained it to me like I was a person and she was with me all the way up until I got into the preop room, and she assured me that everything was going to be all right. When I woke up in the room after my family, she was the first person I saw. She came in, and gave me some ice chips and she told me “See I told you, everything was gonna be all right.” I want to be that person for another child that has to go through a procedure. I want to make another person feel safe and comforted like she did for me. I want to be able to give my patients that piece of mind that they’re being taken care of even if they don’t fully understand what’s happening. I currently work at Piedmont Hospital as a patient care tech on nights after school and I see just how much the nurses on our floor need help but they don’t let that affect the kind of care they give I see in their faces, how much they care about the people that come to our floor and I want to be just like that. There’s only a few ways to make a real difference in this world and this is the way I feel, I can make a true difference. By putting care and compassion into the medical field.

In my family, the military has always been our savior in times of need when my father joined. He was a freshly graduated 18 year-old orphan had nowhere else to go. He spent 22 years in the military where he met my mom and built a life for our family. My brother tried college and it just wasn’t for him so he also went to the Miltary without even finishing his first year. I do respect the members of the armed services, I don’t want that to be my story as well. My mother died in 2019 after being divorced for my father for seven years so my dad was my primary guardian for majority of my life. He did the best he could with what we had but he never let us take things for granted. He always reminded us that it came from his hard work in the past that we had the life we did now and I take that lesson with me every day so I could be the first in my family to actually go to college and get a degree and make a life that wasn’t strictly, hard work in the military. Right now I am in my second year of prerequisites for the nursing program at Augusta University, getting everything together to be able to apply in the next couple months. I do know it’ll take a lot of hard work for me to make it into and make it through the nursing program. I will always have my father’s wise words with me “that hard work and perspiration, grant the inspiration to perseverance.” I know it’ll take many years of study and work to become a certified registered nurse anesthetist, but getting my bachelors in nursing is one of the many steps I need to take to get there. I’m currently a CNA at Piedmont Hospital working nights after school to be able to pay tuition and living costs, and there’s been many times where I’ve wanted to give up or quit school entirely but every time I get to that dark place I asked my dad for advice, and he always comes back with that same message that “it takes hard work and sweat to get to where you wanna be and that if it was easy, everyone would do it there wouldn’t be a need for nurses if anyone could do it and that it takes that one hard-working individual to get through school for good Nurse to come out and help her community.” And at the end of the day that’s all I wanna do. I want to be that kind and encouraging Nurse that you see before you go into a surgery that makes you feel just a little bit more at ease in a very stressful time in your life. I just need some help to get there.

Why I want to be a nurse has never been a difficult question for me to answer. When I was younger it used to be a very common answer of “So I could help people.” and as I grew older it evolved to “ So I can be like the people who helped me”. When I was younger I had to have surgery on my ovaries due to it being compromised by a cyst. I was so nervous to be put under anesthesia for the first time that I felt like I couldn't breathe. In that moment I felt so alone and scared on that cold surgery table that I was shaking until my nurse anesthetist came up to me, held my hand, and told me everything would be okay. She told me that she would even put a peach scent in the mask so I couldn’t smell the medicine. She calmed and comforted me in one of the most terrifying moments of my life and even after the surgery when I was in recovery she came to check on me. This little gesture made me feel so secure in my most vulnerable of moments and that is what truly solidified my dream of being a nurse anesthetist. Any time I tell people where I want to go with nursing the first thing they say is about the salary or the amount of schooling that it will take but anything would be worth being able to have the opportunity to be that comforting factor in someone’s time of need. I have a long journey up the ladder of nursing to get to where I want to be but so far I have already made the first step by becoming a certified nurse aide and gaining experience in patient care, which in my opinion is the most important part of nursing. Being not only an emotional outlet for my patients but also being the comforting hand to hold in their time of need. With a vote of confidence from not only my CNA teacher and employer I hope to earn my LPN license and soon after my BSN degree to become an RN to not only learn the ways of nursing for every rank because like my elders have always told me “You will never know where your going until you know where you come from”. By building experience and gaining wisdom through other I know I could be a great nurse.

My name is Trinity Gilchrist and since before I can remember I’ve wanted to be doctor. Growing up anything and everything that’s was involved with the hospital I was obsessed with, from my yearly check up to my doc Mcstuffins toy doc play set. Growing up my perspectives have changed and sort of shifted to the more caring and compassionate side of the hospital which in my experiences have been the nurses. When I was a kid, I was constantly getting hurt through different activities so I was no stranger to the inside of an emergency room. Even though I was there for hours on end, no one made sure I was truly comfortable except for my parents and the nursing staff. I know the doctors are the important people that make sure we stay healthy and fix us when we’re broken but I’ve always been told that the hospital couldn’t function or run smoothly without its nurses. I want to grow up to be that compassionate light for my patients young or old that make sure they’re okay in their time of need like all the nurses I’ve experienced have done for me. A lot of the time on TV shows or movies, I see nurses explaining medical jargon and different things like that to patients who don’t quite understand what the doctors have been saying, and I could never understand why until it was right in front of my own eyes when my father was in the hospital with heart complications and I couldn’t process all the information the doctors were relaying to me so quickly in my state of fear. Without the nurse that explained to me what all was going on I don’t think I would have been able to compose myself and be strong for my dad. All this is to say that if I am given the chance I will use my nursing career to bring the light and clarity to my patients in their time of need just like so many have done for me and my family throughout our lives.

From the day I was born I was always told that my dad had a plan for me. Even when he was sent on deployment soon after I was born he was still paving my way. Since preschool my dad has been my rock. He’s been the one to teach me how to multiply and divide and read at almost a college level in the fifth grade. He’s really given me my work ethic and helped me to find who I am as a person. Though it was frustrating at times to have to deal with the drill sergeant mindset, he’s always helped me accomplish what I wanted and help me get to where I wanted to be. Now as I’m moving on in life to college I have to step out of his first sergeant wingspan and take control of my own life. His army mentality has really shaped my mind into who I am today though it can make me a little cynical sometimes I have learned that there’s always a time and place for fun and a time and place for work. My dad was a military policeman for 22 years in the US Army and he always talked about how it built him up from a teenager into the hard-working fearless man he is today. It also taught him how to serve and protect others. And this led to him teaching both me and my brother to think of more than just ourselves. The effect this had on me is what seems to be my driving force because I’ve always been drawn towards the medical field so this mindset inspired me to become a nurse. And though my father always asks why I don’t go on to be a doctor, I always reply that doctors are too caught up with so many patients and treatment plans that they never get to connect fully with their patient, while a nurse is more of the empathetic voice of reason to the patient. Nurses get to build a connection with their patients while they are there and make sure that they are getting what they need. That’s what I want to do in life I want to make sure no one is being overlooked especially with how fast paced and overwhelming this world is today. I feel like this also comes from my dad teaching me to always stick up for the little guy and to never let someone walk over me or anyone else. My father gave me my backbone and almost every piece of information I know today. He gave me the basics and the foundation of what I am and I know if I can make it through college and become the nurse that doesn’t let a patient get overwhelmed by medical jargon or get belittled by a doctor because they don’t understand I know I could make my dad proud.

My passions include being a nurse and giving back to the community that helped me through my depression and high functioning anxiety struggles. When I was at my lowest it was a nurse that recommended me to my amazing psychologist. She went to the greatest lengths to make sure I was comfortable and gave me the coping mechanisms I still use to this day instead of the more self-destructive ones that I had previously been using which landed me in the hospital. And this nurse who I know now as Miss Lindsay was with me step-by-step even after I got out of the hospital ensuring that I was OK mentally and physically. She taught me instead of searching for outside reliances to instead look within myself and find my happy place that would always be mine and only mine. She gave me the ice bowl method which has really acted as a reset button for me in my darkest times. She has helped me not be ashamed of my scars or the scars I would have at the time and to use them as reminders that things do get better and that people make mistakes sometime but those mistakes do not define who you are. They can be healed and one day it’ll be like they never were there. Now instead of relying on outside substances and self harm I’ve learned to take a step back and relax and just hit the reset button when I’ve been putting to much pressure on myself. And lastly the coping skill that is helped me the most that Miss Lindsay has taught me is to simply take time out for myself and not people please as much because at the end of the day I will always be with me no matter what the situation is. Overall she opened my eyes into being the more caring and self-aware person that I am today and I really want to be that motivational factor for someone else in their own life in the future. My goals are to be a CRNA Which stands for certified registered nurse anesthetist because throughout surgeries I’ve had in my life those have been the most beneficial to me both inside and outside of the hospital other than miss Lindsay who was an RN and I’d rather be a nurse than a doctor because to me nurses have more community outreach and within my experience nurses are more concerned with the patient rather than doctors who are more concerned with the treatment. I really want to be seen as the beneficial factor that helps someone keep going after surgery or with whatever ails them. And I aspire to be like the wonderful nurses that have helped me so much and use everything they’ve taught me to help others. Thank you

This picture is from my pups homecoming from living in Colorado with my brother and his puppies. His name was Silver for his grey spots in his coat and he is featured here with his favorite blanket and teddy bear showing off his fresh “pawicure”. He will forever be in my heart is the very motivation for me to keep pursuing a better future for myself. *I have also added more pictures of Silver just to help you get to know him as I did a fun loving and caring pup that always had the energy for one more adventure*