Rough Draft for Profile Esssay

Christina Ven

Prof. Tom Maltman

Freshman Composition

6 February 2017

The Life of a Licensed Practical Nurse

For those of you who don’t know me, I have been dreaming about pursuing my future into becoming a nurse. This all started when I used to volunteer at the Masonic Nursing homes in seventh grade and got the opportunity to assist in activities with the elderly residents. This experience really had me open my eyes and see how hard these residents get through their daily lives everyday and how important it is for a nurse to be a good role model to their residents/patients with lots of patiences because with something dramatic happening in a person tends to degrades their life down which results in a situation that is hard to initiate that predisposed ability back of being themselves again. So giving these residents/patients with some encouragement and reassurance about how everything we do will hopefully heal their wellness for themselves. One last thing I would like to add about how being a nurse is the reward of could make a difference in someones life. So as of right now I continued my love for elderly residents at a assisted living in Rosemount, and thought it would be a great idea to interview one of our LPN’s whose name is, Amy. Amy has experience in the medical field since she was 16 years old. During the interview with Amy we had various conversations about her background, why didn’t she choose to become a registered nurse, why this department of nursing and something she will never forget about as working as a LPN that I will be covering in this profile essay.

A background history about Amy’s life has been an adventure through this world of the medical field. Amy is from Theft River Falls, Minnesota. What brought her the idea to become a nurse was this class called, Medical Careers in high school. One of the days during class there was administrations from this nursing home came into talk about their facility and solicited the students about becoming a certified nursing assistant and work with the elderys at the nursing home. So Amy decided to go try that a route and ended up working there for three years until she went to college. Amy went to college in Moorhead  MN and got her LPN there. Her first job as a LPN was pediatric home health aide since she loved kids. This job involved a lot of one on one visiting at their homes. Pediatrics home care wasn’t always consistent either just because if a children were to end up in the hospital, she didn’t have work. She took care of children that had tracheal is when a child’s throat was born with a closed throat, so these kids would go through surgery and get a tracheal put in that will help them breath, swallow, air secretion. Other dynamics Amy was involved with pediatric home health aide job was kids who had brain injuries and vents. One of the most challenging Amy had to face with pediatrics home health care was that every time she met a new client, you never know what their background is like with culture and family standards, and types of dynamics you would be associating with. Amy on the side volunteered to helped families with disability children to take them out and spend time with them when family needed time away for a few hours or so. Amy tends to have a lot of experience in the medical field since now that she is forty years old. 

There was various reasons as to why Amy did not exceed the direction of becoming a nurse. Amy explained that when she was a student, she was not the brightest lightbulb there was to motivate herself through all of that schooling to become a registered nurse. Amy at least wanted to pursue a career in caring with helping people so ended up going to college to get her licensed practical nursing degree at Moorhead. Her intentions after receiving her LPN was to get married and start a family since she was pregnant at the time. By looking back at her past, Amy felt as if she grew up way to fast and wish she went further into her schooling to become a registered nurse. She said there isn’t a big difference between a licensed practical nurse or registered nurse besides that a registered nurse has a way more variety of departments to pursue in and make way more money. Amy has the ability and the knowledge to that degree of a registered nurse she feels, its just she isn’t licensed to be one. 

Amy chose this elderly’s department of nursing for various reasons. Amy loves making a difference for someone who is declining and isn’t used to having family around as much, especially when the holidays come around she likes to pop her head around with the residents to wish them a happy holiday. Amy believes that every resident has a story to tell about their life story. She loves interacting with geriatrics that helps evaluates residents strength and encourages them to better their wellness. She has been living in Rosemount for five years and watched our assisted living started to build up since she lives so close near by and felt as if her heart needed to be there with everyone. 

Since Amy has been through many created moments with these loving patients, she offered to share some experiences she will never forget as a LPN. There was a night she was working in high school as a CNA on the overnight shift where she was sitting at the nursing station in the memory care unit charting on the computer. This facility she worked at was pets acceptable and they had a house cat for the floor and its litter box sat right next to the nursing station. All of a sudden she began hearing a someone peeing inside of the cat litter box. As she turned over for the intention to lift up the cat it was a resident peeing inside the litter box. She laughed so hard and had to escort him back to his room. This man had the mind of a cat where he would even lay on the wood floors in the lounge area and sleep on the ground by the piano. One other story Amy empathized on was about this very ignorant and aggravated lady who always gave all of the workers a hard time, hard to satisfy her needs, and threatened you on the regards about your “poor” work ethics to the administrations. So one day Amy was trying to get all caught up with cleaning these residents rooms after breakfast that consisted of taking out trash and makings beds. Amy was a across the room where the lady resided in and her family was over visiting. With the door opening, Amy could hear faint talks she was having with the family about how she felt about Amy doing a great job all the time. That showed Amy that it wasn’t herself who felt like she was doing a horrible job after all with all of the harassment and degrading that resident was approaching her with. That gave her a life lesson to not take any of rude things you can receive from these people offensively because yes they really do appreciate the help you are giving them and they would be no where if it wasn’t for any of us nurses. In the medical field you meet some wonderful and unique patients that comes across your life that can either make your day or roughs it all out. 

Overall, from this interview from Amy really just motivated me even more to succeed to be called an official registered nurse one day. So many interesting stories that I can be involved in and be the life changing in a person in need. Amy believes that being a certified nurse a the best way to get your basic experience out of nursing and to see if its right for you and where you belong. Nursing isn’t for everyone. These resident/patients are living in a state where everyone has todo everything for them such as helping with getting up, taking a bath, going to the bathroom which makes them feel helpless and impatient because its not what they are used too and tend to get mad at themselves which ends up getting thrown on ourselves since we are always surrounding their environment. Amy had made me realize outside of the box about  when I am in pain I’m not always in the best mood ever. So when someone else is in that same situation, is to try to approach it differently by feeling for them and trying the best to help out. You cannot please someone all the time, but a little effort of help can work. “We care to our given people, and try to make them feel special as much as possible since its the end of their life because that is what we are here for with the wish they wish for now,” Amy’s quote she addressed after the interview.