A hard-working Latina nurse born and raised along the Rio Grande River a half-hour south of El Paso, Texas, I am fully bilingual, bicultural, and an extremely hard worker. I look to your distinguished MSN Program at the University of XXXX to guide me in becoming the most effective and compassionate Nurse Practitioner possible and how to make the most of my bilingual capacity and cultural sensitivity. I look for further direction, awareness, and the chance to cultivate and practice my nursing sensitivities at the service of the underserved in our community, both documented and undocumented residents who need medical attention. I have German, Spanish, Asian, Brazilian, and French roots, and my family has lived on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas, for four generations, in the small border town of XXXX, right across the Rio Grande River from a small town in Mexico known as XXXX, 45 minutes from the closest central medical facility. I use my Spanish every day at my hospital. We help anyone who comes to us in need of assistance—from both sides of the border—so one hears as much Spanish as English in my hospital's corridors.
My nursing ‘career’ began when I was ten years old, and I saw a small 2-passenger plane go down near my home in the middle of the desert where there happened to be a small airport. I was outside riding my bike up and down a dirt road when I saw it happen. I knew that when I saw this plane go down, I must help these people. So, I peddled as fast as my little legs could in the desert sand until I arrived at the crash scene and found two bodies among the twisted metal—one of them was alive and would go on to survive the crash. I jumped off my bike and ran to the first crash victim, who was choking on his blood, and turned him on his side so that he could breathe. Then, I went to try and help the next victim who was not moving or living, and I looked for and found no pulse. This was my first encounter with death. I had no real time to think about what was happening, only to react and render aid, so I waited for help to come sitting beside “my first patient,” who stopped choking but was in agony over his wounds. Luckily, my mother saw the plane go down too, and quickly summoned help and directed the rescuers to the scene. There is not a day that goes by that this event does not resurface in my mind.
One of the things that makes me most proud to be an American, especially one born and raised on the banks of the Rio Grande River, is how we do not deny care at our hospitals to those who most need that care, even if they are a poor person from another country—in this case, the other side of the river—with no way to pay for their medical expenses. Of the thousands of patients that I have attended as a nurse and the many hundreds to which I have spoken primarily in Spanish, one patient stands out in my mind as the personification of everything that I stand for as a nursing professional. Some flesh-eating bacteria riddled a working-class woman from Mexico with bumps all over her little body, and I asked her why she had not sought medical attention sooner. She told me how difficult it was to find a ride to the nearest medical facility, an all too familiar story for me that hits close to home. While we excised pieces of my patient’s skin from her legs to send to the lab to see what bacteria this was and then drugged and re-wrapped her wounds, I explained to her in Spanish: ¨We are here to take care of you and make you all better,¨ and she just welled and up and cried putting up her arms around me and holding me tight, praying, thanking the virgin. Until today, no moment has meant so much to me, except for my ‘first patient’ who I turned over on his side so that he could breathe.
Thank you for your consideration of my application.
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