Nursing Application Essay Help

Hello!

My name is Michelle. I'm a long time lurker and this is my first post. I plan on applying to quite a few ABSN and DE MSN programs within the next few weeks (UCSF, Vanderbilt, Samuel Merritt, Yale to name a few) and am putting together my application essay now. This essay is in response to the, "Why do you want to be a nurse?" topic.

I'm looking for any feedback I can get, good bad or indifferent. Any help is very much appreciated!!

Cerebral Palsy had rendered my patient, my friend, without the ability to speak and as such, I did much of the speaking in our time together.Though that is not to say he did not communicate, for we carried on many conversations about his excellent bowling skills, his love of Bill Nye and his insatiable desire to learn about the universe. We understood one another and I adapted to the way he communicated his needs. On a day not unlike any other day, I finished administering his medication, adjusted his hips in the wheelchair and turned on an episode of Bill Nye (which he selected himself after much back and forth between "Outer Space" and "Phases of Matter") before picking up the remainder of his lunch, chocolate pudding. I turned back to find him smiling. A smile which quickly turned into a fit of laughter as I, mock seriously asked, "What are you smiling about?"

Nothing could quite have expressed a "thank you" as readily as that smile. It was not the first nor the last time we laughed together,and each time it reinforced my desire to serve, to heal, to care. I could do nothing to cure cerebral palsy, but I could heal in the waysI was allowed; with medicine, with compassion, with attention to his individualistic needs.

We all desire kindness, good health and freedom from suffering, yet our suffering is our own and demands its own attention. To serve the welfare of others is to not only acknowledge this uniqueness but to be present in times of hardship and face the challenging moments with grace. It is with grace that I watched a 4 day old infant wrestled with alcohol withdrawals, held the hand of a dying nun as she regaled with me stories of a life caught in the delusions of dementia, and conveyed to a mother, in the throes of a manic episode, that I would be removing her child from her care. And all the while embracing the knowledge that I am fulfilling my purpose to serve yet desiring a deeper role in which to do so.

I wished to reach all of my families, clients and patients in the way I reached my friend. I wished to heal them from the inside. I wished to calm the manic episodes that tore them from a life of peace, to maintain their dignity when their bodies failed them and to guide them gently from a place of suffering to a place of rest.

Words are inexhaustibly restorative, to a mind and a body that are able to receive them. But the touch of a healing hand, to wield medical knowledge against pain and suffering, to offer a respite to those who would otherwise be distressed, is infinitesimally universal.Compassion, kindness and medical treatment need no translation. And where I have seen the limits to my training as a social worker, I see the possibilities in my role as a nurse; the ability to care for individuals on a biopsychosocial plane.