GUEST COLUMN: The Voice of Nursing at AC

By Rachel Martin

Nursing Major

 

Amarillo College nursing students work hard throughout the program but also have to have some down time to make it through.

When students are not studying, some of them love to have family time or spiritual time and like to have lunch or coffee with friends. Others like to do hobbies such as garden work, riding motorcycles, shooting at a gun range, writing in a journal or reading a book for fun.

The “all work and no play” saying is not only a nursing student’s motto. We would go crazy if we did not have some down time. Some of us like to take a relaxing bath and have a glass of wine, while others like to stuff their faces with carbs.

The phrase, “The freshman fifteen,” goes for nursing students, too. Many of us have to try to balance school, family, housework, jobs, etc.

There are many late nights of working on care plans, studying and taking a quiz before midnight (which we just remembered at 11:30 p.m.).

Drinking lots of caffeine and stuffing our faces with junk food is what we do late at night. It’s funny how as nursing students, we try to diagnose ourselves with all those different diseases and disorders we constantly learn about.

To past, present and future nursing students, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s no wonder we don’t feel well during school and start having symptoms that make us think we have some fatal disease.

Look at how we eat and at our abnormal sleeping patterns. Some of us cherish naps like children do. We try to squeeze in time for exercise, but if it comes down to choosing between a nap or exercise, the nap trumps every single time.

Seriously, every single added pound, gray hair, wrinkle and tachycardic spell is well worth it.

Becoming a nurse is a childhood dream for some of us. We have made lifetime friends in nursing school. We share a bond that no one else shares because we know how hard we have worked to get to where we are.

We have some of the most dedicated nursing instructors who lift us up daily and let us know they always are there for us. When it comes down to it, that’s the main thing that keeps us going. Who does not need to be praised or lifted up? Everyone needs that. We thrive on people telling us we can do it.

Many of us will be graduating this December, while others will be graduating in the upcoming semesters. Remember, an uplifting word, a hug or even a smile speaks volumes to us nursing students.

I will leave you with the movie, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story. It is a must-see. The movie is a great example of a boy’s courage and hard work to becoming a neurosurgeon when all the odds are against him. It just took one person, his mother, to lift him up and continue to tell him he could do it.

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