My journey to nursing began after my grandparents died. I knew I had to be a nurse but the process or procedure to get there was quite unclear. My concept of nursing at that time was about wearing the white uniform. After migrating to the United States, the reality of what exists in nursing was an additional culture shock.
Although I got admitted to the New York City College of Technology nursing program, the concept of nursing was still unclear. Jean Watson theory, gave me some insight on what was expected of a nurse, but it didn’t give me the confidence I needed. This confidence I found in my second semester of nursing after I have gotten through my first clinical experience, because upon till this time, I have never set foot in a hospital. The AAS program defined as well as clarified what nursing is, it also gave the skill set that is needed to practice as a competent professional nurse. These skills along with the 10 carative factors of Jean Watson theory were the first solutions needed to understand the profession of nursing.
However, it was the Bachelor of Science in nursing that that provided the tools to comprehend the competence of nursing as well as the impacts nursing has on the society. It highlights the different aspects of nursing as well as the many dimensions of the profession such as informatics, case management, advance practices etc. the clinical experiences reveals that for the patients to get holistic care all aspect of the environment must be involve in the patient plan of care. So it can be said that both the AAS and the BSN is needed to create well rounded nurses who are now equipped to provide competent cultural and holistic care in multidimensional settings.
