The annual celebration of Student Nurses Day recognizes the hard work and ambition of nurses who are pursuing additional education to help them be the best nurses possible.
Student nurses today face an entirely different world than nurses entering school many years ago did. The global pandemic changed the face of nursing in ways that will take years to understand. Because of their valuable skills and knowledge, student nurses found themselves providing patient care even before they had a degree in hand. And while it was trial by fire for many, student nurses learned skills that will carry through their career lifespan.
As a whole, the nursing industry is constantly changing and evolving, and students are frequently drawn to the profession for those reasons. They enjoy the fast pace and the continual opportunities for lifelong learning. They also see a career where they can make a difference in individual patient’s lives and in their communities. And with rapid developments in medical science, nurses are constantly assessing their skills to improve and provide the best patient care.
And even if their careers haven’t officially begun, student nurses can take steps while in school to ensure optimum career readiness.
Clinicals give nursing students a broad understanding of different areas of nursing. Through different rotations, they might get glimpses into everything from obstetrics to pediatrics. But if student nurses find a particular interest in one specialty, pursuing more opportunities in that area will help develop additional skills. Gaining more exposure to particular specialties will also help student nurses determine what they like about that area of nursing and if they want to move their career in that direction. Shadow a nurse in a particular area of interest, ask for an informational interview, or volunteer time in a unit if allowed.
Network Everywhere
As student nurses begin to seek additional career opportunities, networking is essential. Nurses are frequently recruited through word of mouth and personal connections, so networking is an important job skill. Professional organizations are a great place to network with other nurses who are both novice and experienced. Connections with fellow student nurses and faculty, colleagues at clinicals, and peers at conferences can provide an excellent entry into a job or role you didn’t know existed.
Show Up
Be the nurse who asks to go to conferences or who is willing to offer a presentation or sit on a panel. Volunteer at a vaccine clinic or a blood drive. Bring together other student nurses to speak at a local high school and tell younger students about nursing and nursing school. Speak up and do the work needed to get your presence known. You’ll gain experience, but you’ll also help educate others or fill a need in the community.
Nursing students shoulder a heavy workload and any other steps they can take now will help them in the future. Celebrate all student nurses do this week!
Current student nurses have had an academic path that has been influenced in all ways by a global pandemic. This year, Minority Nurse celebrates National Student Nurse Day (honored every year on May 8) by learning more about Azariah Torain, a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh. Torain also is involved in the National Student Nurses’ Association where she is the 2022-2023 Imprint Editor and chair of the Image of Nursing Committee.
Nursing school was a clear choice for me. I wanted to go into a career path where I could both challenge myself and positively impact another person’s life. I knew that nursing school would offer me the flexibility to switch my specialty if I ever got bored with what I was doing. I am very indecisive so I appreciate this option.
Do you know what nursing specialty you would like to go into?
The specialty I think I would enjoy the most would likely be the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Taking care of the worlds’ smallest patients would be so rewarding but also an extremely challenging role. This could change tomorrow though. I am set on my end goal of going back to school and eventually becoming involved in executive leadership in some form.
What excites you most about the nursing industry?
What excites me the most about nursing is the fact that it is an industry full of innovative people. We are fast-paced and our practice is always shifting and evolving based on evidence-based practice. The amount of career paths are endless and so is the potential for growth.
What has been your biggest surprise as a student nurse?
My biggest surprise as a student nurse was definitely how quickly we are learning new things, especially this past semester. We would learn a skill in lab one week and the next we would have a competency evaluation and we are completing the skill from memory. Soon after that we are doing the skill on actual patients. My confidence in my ability has increased significantly as the year has gone by, but never too confident to ask for help.
Has the pandemic changed your path, outlook, or educational plans at all?
The pandemic has shined a light on so many previously overlooked job opportunities in nursing. The prevalence of travel nursing and telehealth have me considering new possibilities! Being a freshman in 2020 was not fun, and I didn’t accomplish as much as I wanted to. With this school year a bit tamer, I have gotten to participate in so much more, and I truly feel like I’m getting the full nursing student experience.
Do you have mentors or supporters?
My parents are easily my number-one supporters, I had a skateboarding incident and broke my front tooth in half three days before my white coat ceremony. My mom somehow was able to find someone to fix it just in time. Even from hours away she still saves the day.
How do you envision your nursing educational and career paths?
I envision the two being very closely intertwined. As I advance in my education I will hopefully advance through my career. I plan on getting a Masters’ in Business Administration and possibly a doctorate level nursing degree in executive leadership.
What would you say to others considering who are thinking of becoming student nurses?
I would encourage anyone looking into nursing to make sure that they are at a stable place in life before enrolling in school. Nursing school can be done and it can be extremely rewarding but it is also incredibly taxing. I welcome anyone to join the nursing profession and if you are thinking of nursing school, you should be active and join a professional organization like NSNA.
As student nurses celebrate the May 8 designation of National Student Nurses Day, they have a lot to be proud of. This year, student nurses navigated through a tumultuous time while continuing to pursue their nursing education despite a global pandemic. The task was, and continues to be, enormous.
To mark National Student Nurses Day, Minority Nurse went right to the source. We asked Aisha Zalwango, who is currently finishing up her senior year at Regis College in Weston, Mass., what it’s like to be a student nurse in 2021. Her answers reflect the challenges of the past year and the hope many nursing students feel going forward.
Please tell me about what led you to go to nursing school.
Ever since I was a young girl in Uganda, I knew that I wanted to become a nurse because I love taking care of the sick, the disabled, and those who need my help. I am majoring in nursing because I want to become a great nurse who will give the best care to my patients. I believe that good care is the best gift one can ever give to someone who is sick and away from their family and friends.
What is your intended specialty?
My intended specialty is Intensive Care nursing (ICU). As a novice nurse, I want to start in medical-surgical nursing so that I can improve my nursing skills and get more experience working as a bedside nurse. After a year or two, I will transfer to Intensive Care nursing.
What has surprised you about being a nursing student?
The things that have surprised me about being a nursing student are the things that I have found out about the nursing profession. They include the following:
Nurses’ roles are not limited to patient care. After a few years of experience, some nurses take on administrative roles, while others become teachers to the next generation of nurses. There are those who become researchers and consultants in the healthcare field.
Nurses have a chance to specialize in a particular area of healthcare. The only requirement to specialize is to fulfill an additional education requirement which in some cases involves completing a master’s degree program.
Have you had a mentor or someone who has influenced you?
A lady whose mother I took care of when I had just come to America has greatly influenced my journey of becoming a nurse. Ever since she found out that I was in school for nursing, she has been encouraging me to keep going. She has always made me feel cared for even if I do not have family here in America. She always calls to check on me so that I do not feel alone. Her caring attitude has really made me feel that I matter.
Have the events of the past year and the pandemic influenced your studies or the way you see your future career at all?
Yes, the events in the past year and the pandemic have influenced my studies and the way I see my future career. When the pandemic was at its peak last year, school and classes were remote, and I could not get in touch with my study group. Some of my friends got sick from COVID-19, and we could not even meet or hang out for a long time. I felt very lonely and so sad because I spent most of my time by myself.
This pandemic taught me to stand strong through challenges and to keep going regardless of the situation, because accomplishing my goals requires such skill. Living in a pandemic so early on in my career, has assured me that I am where I need to be. It has influenced my future career in that I know how challenging this field can get and has assured me that I can handle it.
Through this pandemic, I have learned several essential nursing skills required to become a great nurse. From experience, working as a patient care associate in a community hospital, I have also learned that nurses should use the required precautions the right way in order to protect themselves and take good care of very sick patients without spreading infections. I now know what it takes to be a nurse and to be in this amazing field.
What has helped you succeed as a nursing student?
I am goal oriented. I set goals for myself which include small goals that I believe help me achieve my major goals. This type of skill has really helped me to focus on important tasks, with understanding expectations, and by giving me motivation to get my work done on time. I also organize my time well. I have time to study, time to work, and time to relax.
Being organized has helped me avoid being burned out. I am optimistic as well. Nursing school can be very challenging because preparing for exams, completing clinical hours, going to class, and managing other responsibilities can be overwhelming. However, I look at the bright side of it all. Instead of dwelling on challenging situations, I look for solutions, and I keep going because I am sure and I believe that there is a bright light ahead—in the end, I will be successful.
What are your next steps after graduation?
My major goal for after graduation is to get a nursing job so that I can start taking care of the sick and improve my nursing skills. Since learning in healthcare is ongoing, I will take on any opportunity that will come my way to further my education so that I can improve my professional experience in nursing practice. I also want to take part in various community healthcare projects. That way, I will be able to give back to my community through improving people’s health.
Student nurses don’t need anyone to tell them their lives are busy. With school, work, families, and a personal life, many student nurses are juggling more than most people. Tamar Rodney, MSN, RN, PMHNP-BC, CNE | PhD-c, is a Geneva Foundation/Jonas Veterans Healthcare Scholar 2016-2018 at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and is no exception.
To celebrate today’s observation of National Student Nurses Day, Rodney gave some insight to what life is like for a graduate student in nursing school. As a PhD candidate in nursing, she has been through the rigors of nursing school for a while. What she knows is that her dedication and the time spent on her education is going to bring her to the place she wants to be. Along the way, says Rodney, the journey itself is pretty amazing.
“I love being a nurse, and having the opportunity to make someone’s day or life better,” she says. “I felt drawn to nursing because I admired my memories of childhood reactions to nurses. Their presence meant someone was here to help. I have always carried that image with me of bringing a sense of comfort, security, and a sense of care to someone else.”
Rodney knew going for her PhD would be hard work, but she says her patients were her inspiration and continue to be the motivation to learning as much as she can. “My journey to pursue a PhD was influenced by the day-to-day care of my patients,” she says. “I saw problems that were not addressed and felt like having concrete research would be a good way to start being able to answer those questions.”
And while continuing her education is far from easy, it has brought her a level of satisfaction and of personal and professional growth. “Graduate school is as challenging as I thought it would be,” she says, “but I also got the opportunity to think independently and explore questions that I was interested in. I could finally expand my thinking about ways to provide better care for my patients. I also saw the direct link and importance of collaborating with other healthcare providers and disseminating research for implementation at the bedside.” Eventually, she says, she would like to combine the teaching, research, and practice areas of nursing into one career.
Rodney completed her LPN and RN at Dickinson State University in Dickinson ND, and she started out her career as an LPN working in a nursing home. “I loved it,” she says, “and felt like I would get a new history lesson every day I went to work.” From there, she worked in inpatient psychiatry, primarily to learn more about mental health and how better to approach treatment and diagnosis. It was during that time that she began her MSN program at the University of Vermont.
Discovering a new passion for mental health, Rodney took advantage of certification and gained her psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner certification. “I recently completed my PhD studies at The Johns Hopkins University, exploring biomarkers for PTSD in military personnel and veterans with traumatic brain injuries.” All of her studies are helping her get closer to where she wants. “My ultimate goal is to change the way we approach diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders,” she says.
Like nursing practice, a nursing career isn’t done in a vacuum. Joining a professional organization (Rodney belongs to the Graduate Nursing Student Academy) is a way to network and share resources with other student nurses. “Having completed my program I now have a large network of other young professionals with whom I can collaborate and have as supportive resources,” say Rodney.
And graduate school itself offers opportunities for growth that are unexpected, because you are finding the answers but also beginning to ask the deeper questions. “Graduate work in nursing is a unique way to advance one’s personal understanding of nursing practice, an opportunity to deliver the best care possible and advance nursing research and practice,” she says. “You can explore those questions that you have an interest in and explore innovative ways to answer it.”
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