I came into nursing late in life via a rather circuitous route. When I graduated from high school in Arkansas, my oldest brother, Michael, suggested health care. He is a doctor and had his own practice. His suggestions were RN, NP, nurse anesthetist, physio etc. However, having watched him go through med school I painted all health care professions with the same brush of difficulty and responsibility that at the time I just wasn’t prepared for it personally or mentally.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take his advice at that time, but the seed of health care was firmly planted. After high school I pursued a degree in geography whilst at the same time became a member of the US army reserves and a civilian flight instructor. I thought upon graduation from university I would pursue a career in the military, however when my contractual obligation with the reserves was complete, I decided I had experienced enough military to know it was not a career path for me. I continued teaching flying and eventually started working as a charter pilot. I had a dream to fly for the major airlines but that just didn’t seem to fit personally. At the time I didn’t know why it wasn’t the best fit, just that it wasn’t.
I eventually took a break from flying and moved to Helsinki, Finland with my girlfriend at the time. She was Finnish and we lived there for just over a year. My time in Finland was highly reflective and I decided upon health care as a goal. I soon found myself enrolled in a 4 year master’s degree program in Chinese Medicine / acupuncture. It was during the clinical skills consolidation of this degree that I was fully introduced to nursing. One of my clinical placements was in Swedish Medical Center in Seattle in their HIV / AIDS clinic. Nurses were the backbone of that program. They oversaw and ran the program, conducted assessments and coordinated a lot of patient needs. I realized then I was in the wrong academic program and that I wanted to become an RN. I further realized that my brother was right, nursing was where I needed to be. Every week I would go to clinical and watch how the nurses conducted their work, their engagement with the patients, advocacy and adherence to ethics.
While the idea of becoming an RN was still on my mind, I was trying to figure out how to make it happen. I continued skiing in Whistler whilst in acupuncture school, all along I thought I would only teach skiing for a couple of years but it eventually turned out to be 10 years. I finished my acupuncture degree and worked as an acupuncturist for a while.
Eventually I took my brother’s advice and was accepted into UBC School of Nursing. To say it was a female dominated environment is an understatement. My most memorable moment at UBC was when I found myself in a classroom as the only male with 60 women. On our first day, Prof. Paddy Rodney took me aside and said, to her knowledge, this was the first class they had ever had with one male candidate. She was kind and supportive whilst encouraging at the same time. In hindsight, my experience at UBC couldn’t have been better, I feel extremely fortunate to have attended nursing school with my cohort. The entire cohort was very supportive of one another and we all made it through — although as the minority, I knew I could never skip class or be late for that matter, as it would definitely be noted!
During nursing school, I applied for the employee student nurse program with Vancouver Coastal Health and received a placement at Lions Gate Hospital on their medical ward. This was fantastic as I was able to consolidate skills learned at UBC on the ward. It transitioned into a job there once I completed my BSN.
Nursing has turned out to be a wonderful career path. It has provided a life-long learning experience which I enjoy. UBC School of Nursing provided the skills of advocacy, engagement, and learning initiative whilst the career has allowed me the opportunity to build upon that foundation. Combining this with the soft skills learned in the army, such as dependability, flexibility, adaptability, communication and teamwork, has allowed me to advance my career path in Emergency nursing. I also feel it has given me a deeper connection to this career path. The Emergency Department is where I feel most comfortable, as it is often a fluid and dynamic environment. While most of my career has been in Emergency I have worked in palliative, medical and surgical nursing, with occasional shifts in ICU. It’s an honour and a privilege to be invited into people’s lives when they are their most vulnerable. I have found it humbling to assist people with the navigation of an unfamiliar environment, the environment of health care when they need it the most. Health care is by no means an easy arena to navigate when one has little understanding or exposure to it. This is where nurses come into the equation — helping our patients understand the system.
Advice I would give to anyone considering nursing as a career is that it can be the most rewarding and enriching career path out there. In my previous career paths, flying was certainly a lot of fun, but it lacked the richness that nursing has. Nursing school will lay the foundation for relational practice and how to be a safe and competent team member. After graduation the learning curve really starts. If there is a prospective “Murse” (male nurse) out there, I have one question for you: are you man enough to be a nurse? If you’re not sure, no problem. Research it, talk with nurses, both male and female, read some books on nursing. Tilda Shalof’s “A Nurse’s Story” comes to mind, or books by Dr. Atul Gawande “Being Mortal” or “Better”. His writings are different than Tilda’s in the sense they are not specifically about nursing as he is a surgeon. However, he does talk about nursing in his books and one can see how health care is the ultimate team environment. My encouragement would be to not let being a minority in a female dominated environment hold one back from becoming a nurse. According to the Canadian Nurses Association in 2019, 9 percent of Canadian nurses are male; this has slowly been increasing over the last few years. And caring is gender-neutral.
Spring 2020