STUDENTS
Discovering the True Joy of Nursing
by Sadie Hill ’23, B.S.N. 2024
It’s hard to believe that 16 months ago, we didn’t know each other. It’s been the fastest — yet slowest —time of our lives.
Uniquely, we all arrived at Westmont Grotenhuis Nursing with a past, an education, prior careers and varying amounts of life experience. At some point, we made the decision to pursue an accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing and formed Cohort 4!
We include majors in business, sociology, kinesiology, biology and international relations. We’re a former teacher, social worker, medical research assistant, doula, athlete, fitness instructor and barista. Commuting from homes in Camarillo to San Luis Obispo, we’re mothers, husbands and wives. Each person sacrificed to pursue a challenging accelerated post-graduate nursing degree, demonstrating commitment and dedication to nursing.
We learned a new language (“nursing”), practiced new skills, recorded videos in the lab and experienced the recurring trauma of medication math exams each semester, which required perfect scores. We also awoke at ungodly hours for clinicals. Our communal stress and anxiety brought us closer together.
Conversations and experiences around the reality of nursing have drawn us closer. We’ve talked openly and extensively about the ethical implications of our job, the difference between being cured and being healed, the inescapable nature of death, and the unfairness and injustice coexisting with pain and suffering.
I’ve witnessed the character of our cohort in these conversations; you’re good people. We’ve been exposed to the dark and broken nature of the healthcare system, and we’ve seen each other be advocates, compassionate, bold, culturally aware and sensitive, seeking grace and truth. Together, we’ve encountered a vulnerable side of humanity.
We’ve also experienced new life, miraculous recoveries and watched healing happen. We’ve played a small part in patients’ support systems, building relationships with them and their families. We’ve discovered death can be beautiful and peaceful. This true joy of nursing can give us hope. I encourage us to carry these values into our careers. May we continue to care deeply, speak up for the quality of care each patient deserves, and serve our community with kindness, empathy and eagerness.
Attending a liberal arts nursing school gave us a holistic perspective so we could dig deep into scary and difficult topics to care for the whole patient and not be jaded by the complexity of human experience. Our instructors have modeled this approach and poured their knowledge, wisdom and experience into us.
They taught the nitty-gritty textbook material as well as real-world nursing to equip us for our jobs. They demonstrated open-minded, reflective and resilient nursing.
We’ve grown and evolved so much, with most of us having little to no hospital experience. But we completed the daunting tasks of changing the bed linens and counting respirations. We now exude confidence in settings that initially seemed overwhelming. We’re passing medications on multiple patients, challenging medication orders from pharmacists and doctors, and dissecting and applying protocols to ensure the safety of our patients. We even started IVs on a patient during a code.
We’re not yet experts or professionals, but we’ve become critical thinkers, active learners and ambitious future nurses. We have the opportunity — and responsibility — to take these qualities to our work to make an impact on the culture and standard of care.
We chose nursing, and we have a passion and calling for it. The constant encouragement of family and friends helped us get through. Cohort 4, I’m so proud of us. Each of you inspire me with your work ethic, drive, humor, determination and grit. I can’t wait to see the fruit of our labor flourish and how the hard, but also beautiful and incredibly rewarding, career of nursing will transform our lives.
This is a story from the Spring 2025 Westmont Magazine