Below is the winning essay from one of the four winner’s of the TRWIB Imagine! Career Week Essay Contest. Brooke Molnar is a 10th grade student from Keystone Oaks School District. Brooke dreams of becoming a Nurse Anesthesiologist and will have the opportunity to job shadow with a Nurse Anesthesiologist this summer.
As I was growing up, education was never a priority for me. No one ever pushed me to excel in school and I never took interest in any subjects. When I was growing up I moved around a lot and never had a steady home. There was nobody that explained to me how important school was for my future and how I couldn’t get a well paid job and one that I liked without it. And then last year I moved in with my sister and she showed me how important a good education is. She went through the same things I did and she made it to be a successful nurse and she is doing what she loves. From watching her I can see that if you set your mind to it you can achieve your dreams, that is why I chose to become a Nurse Anesthesiologist.
In order to be a nurse anesthetist I would have to complete four years of college to get my bachelors degree to become a registered nurse. I would like to attend a very prestigious school to show that I work hard and I am educated in what I do. After I have come to be a registered nurse, I will need to work in a critical care unit for two years. This is needed because I need to know about many different medications and how they affect people. Then once that is all done, I will need to apply to get my master’s degree to convert into a nurse anesthetist which generally takes about two years. In all I will need to dedicate eight years of my life to school before I can become a nurse anesthetist. I wouldn’t mind going to school for that long because in the end I will be doing what I have always wanted to do.
A nurse anesthetist is the person who typically puts a patient to sleep before they go through a surgical procedure; such as, giving a pregnant woman a epidural or putting someone to sleep before brain surgery. Anesthetists are normally confused with a nurse anesthesiologist. Although they are similar in their jobs, the anesthesiologist oversees the duties of the anesthetist. Anesthetists monitor patient’s vital signs and give them medication throughout the surgery to keep the patients sedated. A nurse anesthetist will put the patient down and the nurse anesthesiologist will maintain the patient’s health while they are unconscious. The anesthetist will also typically have a pre-surgery discussion with the patient to reassure them that they will be safe and how the patient will feel after the surgery and to disregard some of the fears they have about being put under.
During my work day I would start off by checking my machines that I will be using during the procedures for that day. I will also check my medications and get everything out for my cases that day. Before a patient goes through surgery it is my job to reassure them that they will be completely safe and put all their fears behind them. I would love to do that because I enjoy helping other people out and making things easier on them. There are many things and procedures that I will do during my average work day. I could be working in the operating room sedating the patients and keeping them sedated or I could give an epidural to a pregnant woman when she is in labor. If I am working in the operating room I could be putting special lines into the patients arm to allow the medication to go into their blood vessels which will help me monitor their vital signs. If I am giving an epidural I would be giving the patient an IV of fluids to obtain blood pressure at first. And then, I would find an appropriate area of the spine and inject a small amount of anesthetic to number her from the waist down. There are many other jobs I would be performing on a day to day basis; those are just the main ones.
When I become a nurse anesthetist I will have a pretty flexible work schedule. I will be able to work basically anywhere which means I could move to an area I have always wanted to live and have jobs available. However, I would love to work at Johns Hopkins Medical Hospital because it is a very prominent hospital. Once I have been a nurse anesthetist and I am ready to settle down and have children, I can work part time and get paid as much as a registered nurse does full time. This will allow me to focus on raising my children but I will continue to work and still get paid a respectable amount of money to support my family.
Originally I thought I wanted to be a social worker but after researching it I realized I can put my science and math skills to good work and be an anesthetist. I want to be an anesthetist because they have an excellent salary and growing up I never had any kind of money. Not only do they have a nice salary but it would be nice to help people stay comfortable during surgery. I would love to have a family in the future and be able to spoil my children with things I could never have. But aside from good pay the job would be nice because I am ultimately helping the patient overcome a problem they are currently facing.
I would love to be a nurse anesthetist because I enjoy comforting people and doing everything I possibly can to make their life easier. This job would be perfect because I get to help people go through what might be a hard part in their life and have them come out of a successful surgery and be healthy. And without a nurse anesthetist doctors would not be able to perform their job. They play a very vital role in the operating room, to keep the patient as comfortable as possible. This in my opinion is what I would be sufficient in. I have always loved pleasing other people and making them happy.
