If you looked up the word “nurse” in the dictionary, it would be defined as “a person trained to care for the sick”. In my experiences I have determined that it means so much more than that. Anyone who has been admitted into a hospital, or had a loved one in a hospital knows that it’s the nurses who make your experience better. A nurse is one the first people to hold a newborn baby, and they’re the support when you lose a loved one. Nursing is more than a profession and that is why I want to be a nurse. My personal experiences, the experiences of my loved ones, and the nature of the profession are why I want to be a nurse.

The first time that I remember encountering a nurse was a particularly memorable one. My grandma has had terminal cancer for as long as I can remember. As a child I would spend all summer at her house on the lake and among the memories of baking in the sun and playing in the sand I can vividly remember the nurse who cared for her. Every two weeks she would receive a treatment administered by a nurse who came to her house. While my older sister Rebecca had no interest, I was always so captivated by what she was doing and stayed by her side for the entire time. Placing the IV into a “port” as my grandma called it (a catheter located near the collarbone), using the machine, the equipment and all of the tools were so fascinating to me. Aside from what she did medically, it was really the way she treated my grandma that made such an impact on me. My Grandma is still living with cancer; she recently claimed that nurses are her guardian angels, and emphasized that without them she would not have been able to deal with hospitals and doctors. My grandma and her experiences have had such a huge impact on my decision to go into nursing.

As a little kid, when most kids wanted to be superheroes and princesses, I wanted to be a doctor. I don’t know what