TYLENOL® Fund to Advance Diversity in Nursing and Health Equity Research

Towards the end of my previous degree, I tore my achilles and had to receive surgery to reconstruct the damaged tissue. During this difficult time in my life, I recognized that it was the nurses through their excellent care that supported me. Being a patient at the University Hospital, I was treated with extreme kindness and respect. The nurses expressed excellent therapeutic communication, discussing and explaining to me the surgical intervention I was going to go through and the adverse effects I might experience along with the interventions available to me. I felt like I was treated like family by this excellent group of nurses, and they advocated for me, making sure to change my pain medication to one that was readily available. These excellent nurses, all supporting one another, made me fall in love with this profession and inspired me to apply to the nursing program at the University and several months later I began this life-changing journey. Nurses are individuals, healthcare professionals that in some ways, are more important that doctors because they are with you 24/7. Nurses are always there with you when you need it most and they are the individuals taking the time out of all the things they need to do in the day to be there as your rock in your hardest time.