On September 10th, 1994, my dad missed my birth due to being away at an Army training at Fort Campbell. This was the first of many occasions in which the military brought separation and sacrifice into my life. For many years, I believed that sacrifice was the equivalent of service. It was a requirement to make a good soldier. Service was for the benefit of others. While my views have shifted as I’ve grown, I still hold those early lessons close.
At 18, I attended the University of Arkansas. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do but I loved the sciences and ended up graduating with a degree in animal science. Shortly after I married my husband, who was a blackhawk pilot in the Army at the time. Weeks before getting married my husband was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, which is a career ender for a military pilot. After my husband’s medical discharge from the Army, I found myself in a void, unable to find a “career” type job in the animal science field. I wanted to make a difference in the world but wasn’t sure how. I turned to what I knew, the military. After conferring with my dad and husband, I decided to join the Air Force. After speaking with a few recruiters, I learned the wait for officer training school was around two years at the time, and I didn’t want to wait. I enlisted in the Air Force so I could leave sooner. I left for bootcamp with a job I knew nothing about and that felt exhilarating. I loved the training and being in the military. I was in the inaugural class for Mission System Operators aboard the AWACS. My classmates and I had to work through all the kinks of being the first through the program and hopefully gave some valuable feedback to make it better for the next class. During my enlistment, I had the misfortune of having many training delays because of the infamous COVID-19 pandemic. Because of these delays, I never deployed with my unit and that is one of my biggest regrets. I felt like a deployment was what real “service” was. I felt like sacrificing and fighting the good fight would make me feel like I had really given back for my country. Looking back, I can see that I still had a very valuable role in my unit even without having a deployment. After I had my daughter, I decided to get out and pursue new dreams in the healthcare field.
Since leaving the military, service has looked a little different. I started a Master of Nursing program here at Vanderbilt, seven months after hanging up my flight suit for the last time, once again in an inaugural program. I chose nursing because I enjoy the feeling of helping others and working through problems to get to the root cause of an issue. Through my clinicals I gained a new perspective on how I solve problems. The military taught me to look at problems as a whole unit of moving parts. To solve these, I would do what is best for the group to get the mission done efficiently and successfully. In nursing, that simply doesn’t work. Every patient has their own unique problems and barriers to their health. There is no one size fits all solution. As a nurse you also must accept that you may not fix the problem, or the patient just may not be in a place where they are ready to change to fix the issue at hand.
I recently began my first full time position as a Registered Nurse as I continue my education to be a Family Nurse Practitioner. Service now means that I will do my best to find solutions for each patient I have. It means finding unique answers for complex problems and not just giving the book answer. Service means ensuring the community I’m in is healthier and better off because I exist there and will be making a difference in everyday lives. For me service doesn’t have to mean sacrifice like I believed as a child, but can be a wonderful passion I enjoy and use as a tool to transform the lives of my patients.