Left to right: Dawn Sheffield, Roberta Vanderburg, Miranda Daehn, Terri Bunch, Jennifer Carter, Amber Moore, Susan McGrady, Anitha Sanderson, Shelley Williams and Jana Crews
Forty-six (46) essays with the topic “Caring is the Essence of Nursing” were submitted by high school students in the area. The essays were written as a precursor to National Nurses Week 2016. Miranda Daehn’s essay was chosen as the top essay (see below) by the Nursing Leadership group at Hopkins County Memorial Hospital.
Miranda is in the Heath Science program at Sulphur Springs High School and recently decided to enter the health care field as a nurse. Jennifer Carter, HST Instructor at SSHS, said Miranda …”is great in clinical and requests assignments such as medical floor when no one else chooses that.”
Qualifications for essays submitted to the Nursing Leadership group included originality, thoroughness, and clarity of thought.
In her essay, Miranda wrote:
“Being in the Health Science program at school, I’ve learned a few things about what it means to be a nurse. Nursing isn’t just about healing a patient physically. Nurses don’t just treat wounds, give stitches, or do everything they learned from a book. No book is capable of teaching a human being how to inform a patient’s loved one that he lost a life or is on the verge of losing a life. No book can teach you how to cry with a patient. No teacher can show you how to find dignity in giving a patient a bed bath.
“Being a nurse isn’t just about handing out pills; starting IV’s, charting, or caring for the patient’s needs. It’s being able to love a person when he’s at his weakest and most vulnerable state, and when the time comes where a nurse loses a patient, it’s about being able to freely break down, yet knowing he did everything in his power to help that person. Nursing isn’t making money; it’s making yourself a respectful, loving human being. It’s not something you just wake up and want to be one day, it’s a calling that requires tears, blood, stress, lack of sleep, and most importantly, care. One has to strive to be a nurse; has to want to be able to help everyone in every way possible even if they don’t agree with the patient’s beliefs, actions, or even the way the patient presents himself.
“If I could retain only one thing from being in the Health Science program, I want it to be that not everyone is cut out to be a nurse, and that’s okay. But to be a nurse, it takes a special type of person.”
