I just have a passion for caring for people and taking care of them.
And I felt like I wasn't choosing just one career path because with nursing you can do
so many different things.
Something that really was a make or break statement for me was whenever I heard someone
say Samford sets out this banquet for you and you have to choose to pull your chair
up to the table.
So it's up to you how much you want to do and grow in that area, and I really thought
that was a great balance because I wanted to have those opportunities to grow,
but I also wanted to be able to choose how I wanted to do that.
I always tell the students, you know you're coming to a place where the majors that we
have and the opportunities that we have, they're getting you ready to go on a journey that
you're not going to have any trouble feeling completely prepared for.
I feel like I've grown so much from having no clue what to do interacting with a patient
to feeling like, wow I feel confident going in to be able to provide competent, but compassionate care.
The teachers didn't play any games.
They were like, you need to know how to assess.
And that really prepared me because it all starts with walking into the room of my patient
and assessing them.
The fact that we're able to be in a facility here at the College of Health Science where we are under the same roof
as all these different disciplines, it's unbelievable how even much more collaborative we can be.
That was the first time I've ever gotten to work with another health professional.
It helped me to see their world. It helped me to understand that as a nurse I have to work with different healthcare
professionals to provide just the best care for each and every patient.
We're really a medical community here, and not just you know the big huge, urban hospitals,
but we have lots of outlying hospitals, and lots of community organizations that provide opportunities
for students to do all sorts of different aspects of nursing, and you know mission work
and all those things, so it's invaluable.
It helps with getting jobs later, because when employers see you had this many clinical
hours in this setting and you want to do this, like, that's amazing.
I didn't even know when I was looking at nursing schools to even think about the location of
the university in relation to clinicals because it makes a huge difference.
Clinicals are a huge part of your nursing experience.
The fact that I have clinicals in different types of units lets me see different types
of worlds and I really, really enjoyed that.
As you're looking at different nursing programs, I really encourage you to look at what do
the hospitals around the program say about those types of nurses.
I've had nurse managers tell me, when I see that Samford application come across my desk,
I'm immediately going to give them an interview.
I always hear, "Oh, we love Samford nursing students."
They know us before we even get there and they take me by the hand and they walk me
through this is how you do this, do you want to see this, do you want to go to a procedure.
And it really facilitates my learning and just my, just my practice.
Samford really prepares us to be both competent but also compassionate nurses.
It's not just about how do I take care of this patient physically, but emotionally and
spiritually and as a whole, which I think was huge.
And it was such a gift to have faculty that have that same mindset as me to use nursing
as really a calling and that's something that comes with having those faculty mentors walking
alongside you, sharing their stories of how they cared for patients in difficult situations.
They really care, and that's what touches my heart.
The nursing program really cares for me.
And I, I need that, you know, 'cuz it's really hard.
I'm going into a whole profession that I didn't know anything about.
They took me by the hand, rooting for me, cheering for me, and if you want that encouragement
because nursing school is not easy, Samford is, Samford is the place to be.