Georgetown, I Hardly Knew Ye
I just wanted to take a brief moment to thank all the family and friends of those of us in the second-degree program. None of us would be here today without the love and support from all of you. In addition, on behalf of all the second-degree students, I would like to thank all the professors and clinical instructors that we have had over the past 16 months. You have been wonderful teachers, mentors and cheerleaders—you’ve not only trained us well, but you’ve instilled in us a belief that we will become successful Georgetown nurses (even if we don’t trust that about ourselves yet).
For those of you who have not experienced the Second Degree Nursing Program first-hand, I thought that I would give you a little recap of our 16 months here:
When I received the letter of acceptance to this program, excitement and fear hit at this same time. I had been out of college for almost 8 years, and the thought that I would be thinking, eating, and sleeping nursing school for 16 months was more than just a little daunting.
When I walked in the doors of St. Mary’s on that cold day just after New Year’s last year, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The first person that I met was Chrissy van Hilst—she and I were both ridiculously early to orientation (I think that was the last time I was ever early for a “class”). What I learned during orientation was that we, as a cohort of men and women, came from all over the country—we even had a classmate who was still jet-lagged from her flight from India. Several of us knew each other from past jobs; some of us had Master’s degrees; a few of us were married, and had children. Still others had barely been out of college before diving right back in. We are a diverse group to say the least.
Fast forward a couple of months—we had somehow made it through the first round of midterms, and our first clinical rotation was on the horizon. We were learning how to conduct head-to-toe assessments, and how to get over our fear of walking into a patient’s room for the first time.1 Then in a flash, the semester was over. We were a quarter of the way through the program!
The summer semester went by in a blur—we learned to survive 3-hour lectures, saw the beauty of a human birth, felt the anguish and strength of parents with sick children, and the suffering that patients with mental illness can experience. We crammed more Patho into our heads than I thought was humanly possible, and then we were set free for 3 weeks of well-deserved vacation. By the time the fall semester started, I think that we were generally comfortable with the routines of the second-degree program—we were no longer the newest cohort on the block.
One year after starting this program we began our senior semester. For me, the things that we had learned in the past three semesters started falling into place just as the terror of graduation started to sink in. And here we are today, about to embark on the next phase of our lifelong journey.
We have grown as people, as nurses, and as scholars. We have learned to assess and care for patients, to seek answers to our questions, and the importance of continuing our professional education once we leave the safety of Georgetown. We are a strong and vibrant cohort of second-degree students with diverse backgrounds and diverse professional goals.
Thank you for letting me ramble down memory lane for the past few minutes. To close, I thought that I would use the words of the wise singer-songwriter Dolly Parton from her song “Travelin’ Thru,” as it captures my feelings today:
Oh sometimes the road is rugged, and it's hard to travel on
But holdin' to each other, we don't have to walk alone
When everything is broken, we can mend it if we try
We can make a world of difference, if we want to we can fly
1 The original sentence (which was censored) read: "We were learning how to conduct head-to-toe assessments, and how to put in Foley catheters ("You want me to put what in where?" was the thought running through my head on that day)."
For those of you who have not experienced the Second Degree Nursing Program first-hand, I thought that I would give you a little recap of our 16 months here:
When I received the letter of acceptance to this program, excitement and fear hit at this same time. I had been out of college for almost 8 years, and the thought that I would be thinking, eating, and sleeping nursing school for 16 months was more than just a little daunting.
When I walked in the doors of St. Mary’s on that cold day just after New Year’s last year, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The first person that I met was Chrissy van Hilst—she and I were both ridiculously early to orientation (I think that was the last time I was ever early for a “class”). What I learned during orientation was that we, as a cohort of men and women, came from all over the country—we even had a classmate who was still jet-lagged from her flight from India. Several of us knew each other from past jobs; some of us had Master’s degrees; a few of us were married, and had children. Still others had barely been out of college before diving right back in. We are a diverse group to say the least.
Fast forward a couple of months—we had somehow made it through the first round of midterms, and our first clinical rotation was on the horizon. We were learning how to conduct head-to-toe assessments, and how to get over our fear of walking into a patient’s room for the first time.1 Then in a flash, the semester was over. We were a quarter of the way through the program!
The summer semester went by in a blur—we learned to survive 3-hour lectures, saw the beauty of a human birth, felt the anguish and strength of parents with sick children, and the suffering that patients with mental illness can experience. We crammed more Patho into our heads than I thought was humanly possible, and then we were set free for 3 weeks of well-deserved vacation. By the time the fall semester started, I think that we were generally comfortable with the routines of the second-degree program—we were no longer the newest cohort on the block.
One year after starting this program we began our senior semester. For me, the things that we had learned in the past three semesters started falling into place just as the terror of graduation started to sink in. And here we are today, about to embark on the next phase of our lifelong journey.
We have grown as people, as nurses, and as scholars. We have learned to assess and care for patients, to seek answers to our questions, and the importance of continuing our professional education once we leave the safety of Georgetown. We are a strong and vibrant cohort of second-degree students with diverse backgrounds and diverse professional goals.
Thank you for letting me ramble down memory lane for the past few minutes. To close, I thought that I would use the words of the wise singer-songwriter Dolly Parton from her song “Travelin’ Thru,” as it captures my feelings today:
Oh sometimes the road is rugged, and it's hard to travel on
But holdin' to each other, we don't have to walk alone
When everything is broken, we can mend it if we try
We can make a world of difference, if we want to we can fly
1 The original sentence (which was censored) read: "We were learning how to conduct head-to-toe assessments, and how to put in Foley catheters ("You want me to put what in where?" was the thought running through my head on that day)."
Comments
I'll say for the record that nurses rock (even with their "off color" jokes).
You've joined some great company -- let's see, my mom, my sister-in-law and my great aunt to name a few.
I was going to ask my mom about the whole pinning thing, but she said she had sworn an oath of secrecy :)
-VIMS