I believe when who we are as people combines with all of the necessary skills we have mastered and the knowledge we have gained as students, to form who we are as professional registered nurses.

I have always been a level-headed, hard-working, and organized person and these traits have contributed greatly to helping me obtain my Associate’s degree and then move on to my Bachelor’s. My ability to control my emotions gives me the power to deal with many situations at one time and helps me maintain my rational thinking abilities even when I am around angry, grieving, or upset patients and family members. This ability to remain calm and rational also helps me treat them with compassion because it allows me to correctly assess how they must be feeling.

The busy work environments nurses have to operate in make being organized a necessity. Nurses who are not organized have much greater chances of making mistakes, which may lead to poor patient outcomes. Though it sometimes seems tempting to tell myself that I am too busy to organize things, I know that having an organization system in place will actually save me time in the long run. Thus, I always make sure to keep everything methodologically arranged and updated.

It has been essential to tap into my willingness to work hard to finish these degrees. I have spent years memorizing, writing, assessing, and working with patients. I would not have been able to make it through all the work if I did not feel gratified by being able to make a difference in people’s lives and willing to break a sweat to do so.