Career Pathway Assessment
Amy Dolan
Old Dominion University School of Nursing

I have always been a “nurse”. I “nursed” my sister when she was little, I picked “flowers” (weeds) for my mother when she was sick, and I rushed to a friend’s aid in high school when she fainted due to anorexia. My nickname my senior year in high school was none other than “Florence”. It’s just me-the instinct to assist, to nurture - to help make a difference. However, it took many years and a few careers to finally figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I was drawn into the medical field when I met my first husband, the father of my daughter. He was a podiatrist and I ended up working in his office as a secretary and bookkeeper. Over the years, I worked for different physicians in varying capacities but lastly a group of cardiac surgeons here in Richmond. I always felt I could do more, be more than “just” a clerk/secretary/surgery scheduler. In 2004, my daughter’s father died suddenly in a car crash. We were no longer married but it was still devastating. So I began to think about what I could do to make myself more available for my daughter and find a job with a more flexible schedule. I knew many nurses and thought, “I can do that.” It was in the back of my mind and I didn’t know how important that decision would be. In June of the same year, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. At stage 4 and no surgical options available, she was given months to live. My world was changing rapidly. I quit my job to spend as much time as possible with her – she died just 3 months after receiving her diagnosis. In my frequent visits, I heard stories from both my mother and father of how wonderful the hospice nurses were and what good care they were taking of both of them. Accompanying them to doctor’s appointments, I saw firsthand how nurses were making a