At the Heart of Health Care's Future

I am so grateful for my experience at Gonzaga in the nursing program. I recently received the Outstanding Bachelor of Science Nursing Student Award, which is very exciting, and I am honored to have been nominated and selected for that award, which is given to a student who has displayed a commitment to academic excellence, leadership, and service in the nursing program. I was nominated and selected by the Gonzaga faculty, which means a lot to me. I think all my peers have given everything to this program and excelled as well. Thank you for letting me share my own experience in nursing and what the Gonzaga program has meant to me.

I have had extensive clinical experience in Spokane hospitals on med-surg floors, maternal health, pediatrics, oncology, and most recently, I spent five weeks in the cardiovascular operating room at Sacred Heart Medical Center for my practicum experience, which is our final hospital rotation as seniors. This was a special placement—one not usually available to students—so I am very grateful. In my time there, I learned operating room skills as a nurse and saw open heart surgery, robotic heart surgery, and valve replacements. I worked on a team with cardiac surgeons, anesthesiologists, as well as other nurses. My mind is blown at the complexity of the procedures performed and what we can do in modern medicine. For example, robotic heart surgery is a very new and upcoming field on its own. It is useful because it decreases recovery time and allows you to be less invasive during procedures. It is amazing to watch—the patient is put under anesthesia and four ports are created where the robotic arms are put into place. The surgeon sits 10 feet away at a console and looks through what looks like a microscope or binoculars and sees the inside the heart through a camera on the robotic arm. It almost looks like a video game as the surgeon moves the controller and console to operate on the heart without even opening the chest.

On my very last day of rotation, I was present for a heart transplant procedure. This was very special as only about 15 are done per year at Sacred Heart. It was an incredibly moving day to see how many people came together and how many resources were compiled to save a single life. A team flew out from Sacred Heart in the morning to receive the donor heart from the East Coast via private jet. The whole surgery in Spokane took about 12 continuous hours. There were around 30 people in the room, including multiple surgeons, nurses, a transplant coordinator, anesthesia staff, scrub techs, and me. It was an amazing and much-anticipated moment when the new heart arrived, and we all knew that one life had ended that day to save the life of another. It was very emotional, as the patient had requested 7 songs to be played during her procedure, including songs like Fight Song by Rachel Platten. This was powerful music that the patient had listened to along her journey. As her new heart was stitched into place, I was brought up to the sterile field to watch it slowly turn pink and start to beat again. I will never forget the cheers that erupted in that room after everybody held their breath silently waiting for her new heart to beat.

These are just a few impactful stories from one singular rotation here at Gonzaga, and I have probably 100 more. Gonzaga has given that blessing to me, and I have truly seen a lifetime of amazing, sad, hard, and hopeful things during clinical rotations. Throughout my time in nursing school, I discovered that I have a passion for psych and mental health, which is a huge need in the world right now.

I have had a rotation at an outpatient addiction treatment facility, as well as Eastern State Hospital, which is the inpatient psychiatric state hospital; however, I have had encounters with psych all through every clinical rotation, in the NICU, in small patient interactions, and with families. I am drawn toward those hard conversations and helping people when they are vulnerable. I want to help people with their own thoughts and feelings and help them get to where they want to go so they can build the life they truly want to live.

I am very excited for my next step. In the Fall, I will start graduate school at Montana State University. I was accepted into the Psychiatric Mental Health Doctorate of Nursing Practice program, which is three full-time years of school and clinical rotations. My end goal is to do therapy, counseling, and medication management with patients who have depression and anxiety.

I am so excited for this next step, but I am so sad to graduate and leave Gonzaga. It is bittersweet, but I would choose Gonzaga 100 times over, and I am so grateful for all my experiences in the nursing program here.