6
THE SELF-CARE ISSUE
WHY WE BECAME NURSES
FROM BARRIERS TO BEDSIDE
as a nurse’s aide so I had grown up hearing about her work in that setting so decided that I would pursue a nursing career. I received my BSN in 1971 and my MSN in 1995. In 2022 I retired after over 50 years of service to others that included bedside nursing in critical care, teaching, management and executive ad- ministration. I have had no regrets about my career choice. I had an incred- ible career that enabled me to provide care and support, meet and work with incredible people, travel, teach, publish, and, most importantly, become a lifelong learner. While I still think that I would have been a great veteri- narian and remain angry that any individual in a position of author- ity can alter the life of a young person with a single sentence, I consider myself fortunate in having had an incredible career in a profession that has so much opportunity and reward. Submitted by Carolyn Brown, CA
I
chose to become a nurse in 1966. It was not what I wanted to do. I had had a lifelong dream of becoming a veterinarian
but when I met with my high school counselor and informed him of my future plan, his response was “You can’t do that. You’re the wrong color and the wrong gender. You might be able to be a beautician.” Unfortunately, I did not challenge his direction. I knew I would likely be a terrible beautician, so considered either nursing or teaching. I am a third generation Japanese American, born and raised in Cali- fornia. My family was incarcerated during World War II when the U.S. government identified all individ - uals of Japanese descent on the West Coast as enemy aliens and moved over 125,000 individuals, over 70,000 of whom were U.S. citizens, to concentration camps in desolate inland areas. My mother had worked in the camp hospital
28 ELITE LEARNING
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