I'm 24 years old and I've never truly done anything that I've wanted to do. Twelve years of gymnastics, seven years of track & field, four years of psychology and sports medicine at Rice University, and 15 months at UTHealth School of Nursing has barely left me room to breath, let alone travel. So here I am, one day into my 32 day road trip - hopping national parks out to LA then back to Houston. I'm writing by headlamp and I just took a naked solar shower out in the wilderness. So I say day one is a success.

During my undergraduate at Rice University, I took several classes directed at becoming a physician. I had the opportunity to shadow multiple physicians in the ICU during my senior year and what I found was unfortunate and discouraging. These doctors were spending minutes, if not seconds with their patients and 90% of their remaining time was spent behind a computer trying to decide what test to do. Though I knew that I could chose my own destiny in what type of physician I wanted to be, I was so turned off by this experience and began to consider alternative careers that were focused more on what to do FOR the patients. Before this experience I thought that nursing was a step down from being a physician but I soon realized that nursing is actually a step up. Nursing provides more focus on the type of care that I believe fosters healing and genuine recovery for patients. I think nursing teaches us more of what we can do FOR patients and I believe this type of care is on the rise in the medical field. I believe the role of physicians will become obsolete in the future if they continue to focus solely on new technology and tests to run. That’s the type of job that can be programmed into a computer. It’s the compassion and care of nurses that can never be replaced by a computer and since becoming a bedside ICU nurse, I have found this evermore true. My proudest moment as a nurse thus far has been receiving an award that exactly represents my purpose for becoming a nurse. I recently received the DAISY Award that honors skillful and compassionate nurses. The nomination that led to this award was written by a mother whose daughter landed in my ICU via air transport for an emergent post-surgical complication. In her nomination, she thanked me for not only providing optimal medical care, but for giving her daughter a sense of safety in one of the most uncertain times in her life. Her daughter had just received a college scholarship for softball and she broke down in tears with worry that her collegiate dreams would come to an end as her physical health declined. This was a moment where she didn't need a nurse or a doctor, but a friend and mentor. I listened through her concerns and offered my story of struggle through my own drastic injury that risked by collegiate athletic scholarship. In this moment, I may not have been restoring her physical health, but I was healing. This is the moment where I realized the beauty of holistic healing and how much this type of nursing has to offer to suffering patients. Months passed since this experience before I received a DAISY award and I thought of how many other lives that I may have impacted in the same way. An overwhelming since of joy and pride flooded through me as I realized that I was accomplishing the type of care that I set out to provide when I decided to become a nurse. I wasn't a doctor behind a computer, but a nurse at the front line of a patient's disaster. I have so much more to offer.