A very hard-working, licensed RN, I am attracted to XXXX University’s MSN Program due to your high passing rates for the RN licensing exam. As I began to investigate further, I became most impressed with the research of your extraordinary faculty and their dedication to spending adequate time with students to provide them with a helping hand. I like that XXXX University is home to more than 130 clubs and organizations. My temperament is a good fit for nursing. My character is calm and easy-going; my approach is amiable, my personality is professional, and my greatest strengths are sincerity and humor. My most incredible pride is parenting; my ultimate fun is learning new knowledge and skills. I aspire to be a devoted husband and father with a well-rounded lifestyle. Most of all, I want to be a modest yet well-respected nurse. I am a good fit with XXXX, a program committed to providing its patients with innovative care with an ethos of excellence.
Most important is my profound admiration for your commitment to community service, which speaks volumes about your mission of enhancing the welfare of communities globally and locally. As a Latino man and a nurse, I am passionate about the struggle against Diabetes because of its devastating effects on Latinos. I feel strongly that my experience as a registered nurse provides me with a solid foundation that will enable me to excel as a graduate student in your MSN-E program. I appreciate that XXXX is one of the largest graduate schools for the health professions in California; your graduates are given first consideration for a seat in the FNP Program. Completing an MSN at XXXX University of Health Science will provide me with the knowledge and skills to optimize my contribution to my community as an FNP, especially concerning the underserved.
Nursing is, for me, a career change motivated by factors of heart and conscience. Thankfully, we have reached economic stability as a family so that I can, for the first time, turn my undivided attention to nursing 24/7 – fulfilling my dreams of helping people as a profession, having a vocation, a calling, then just a job. Throughout my adult life, I have yearned to help people and do the kinds of things that a nurse does, and I was unable to do so because I sold myself down the river to meet my family's needs. This emptiness of not helping people made me unhappy. My grandma and mother raised me to give something back. I assimilated rapidly with immigrant families. I can bond with them because I understand them and relate to them, the difficulty of the challenges they face, and the courage to struggle forward to care for their children and their long-term needs. I want to be a voice for the ‘undocumented.’ Today, I am amazed at my story and my family’s and how we all “made it out” of our profoundly underrepresented community. I am a proud Chicano whose family became focused and understood the importance of obtaining a higher education. My older siblings are in education: one is a teacher, another a K-6 principal, and the third is a para-educator. Two of them have doctoral degrees.
I have found my strength and am ready to dedicate my full attention to becoming the most prepared nurse possible. Becoming a nurse can be emotionally challenging, but it is just as rewarding; it is where I find my greatest joy. I now have the mental strength, motivation, and compassion to stand up to the challenge of my lifetime. Even though my grandma is absent, she is with me daily; I hear her proudly saying: "That's my boy.” I am eager to start the next chapter in my life and continue to build upon my rite of passage. The goals I have formed for myself today help me make the most of life; this includes helping others with genuine sincerity. I am a patient advocate, a caregiver by nature, and a helping hand to those in need, especially the underserved. My inspiration to become a nurse was going along with and observing my grandmother and mother caring for sick, elderly patients in their homes in Mexico. Their compassion for their patients was exceptional, as they cared for them as if they were family. I used to stay with my grandmother during the summers in Guerrero, Mexico, and help in any way I could with their care. I used to sit and read to them, reposition them in bed, or transfer them from bed to wheelchair. I held their hands as they told me their life stories. The patients appreciated my time with them and how I listened to them. This is why I have loved talking to people and caring for them for as long as I can remember.
I am particularly interested in preventative medicine and hope to assist in research related to diabetes treatments, especially for poor and underserved populations. I am also interested in the problems of providing appropriate and effective healthcare to a rapidly aging population and this situation's new challenges. I have learned to use positive, non-verbal signals in communicating with patients and responding appropriately. When working with patients, I have always sought an integrated approach to patient care, considering family situations and dynamics.
I earned my undergraduate degree in 2006 in Kinesiology, thinking that it would be complementary to my studies in nursing: understanding the human body, addressing lifestyle choices, learning how to alleviate muscle ailments through the application of various healing techniques, and the overall enhancement of the well-being of the patient. In 2013, I received my vocational nurse license. The child of a single parent who always struggled economically, my undergraduate grades were not stellar because I was obliged to work long hours throughout my studies. I am fully bilingual and bicultural. I communicate well with patients, their families, and coworkers, and I have experience dealing with patients and families over the last 25 years in Guerrero, Mexico. I also have three years of dealing with different areas of our healthcare systems, hospitals, clinics, rehabs, long-term care facilities, and patient homes. I am incredibly passionate about helping the underserved in Latino communities. Growing up in some of the worst streets of Northeast Los Angeles—I learned what it meant and felt like to be a victim of crime, have limited food choices, and seek help in some of the nation’s most overcrowded healthcare clinics. This has helped me connect with many patients on my rotations since patients often feel more comfortable interacting with Spanish-speaking nurses.
When you can step back to see someone else’s point of view, you grow because you can relate to them at the most human level and find harmony and appreciation in cultural differences. I have grown enormously through direct contact with patients from many diverse backgrounds. With every patient that has attended, I have sought to understand them from their perspective.
For example, during my hospital rotation, the primary care physician asked me to escort an elderly Chinese woman to the laboratory to have her blood drawn, but I noticed the woman's hesitation. I asked if everything was ok. She nodded, "Yes." As we arrived, she took the laboratory slip and declined to have any blood drawn. At first, I took it personally; I thought she might not feel comfortable with a male nurse. It wasn't until I learned from my colleague that the Chinese believe that blood taken away from their body will never be replenished. We could draw her blood the following day with the help of a translator. This experience helped me better understand the nature of my utility as a bilingual Spanish/English nurse (who is learning a few words in Chinese).
As long as I live, I will never forget “Jose,” a Mexican migrant farmworker who sustained a severe hip injury. His family was in Mexico, and he spoke and understood only a very rural Spanish dialect. He had no visitors, and his recovery was not progressing. Jose appeared uninterested in recovering; he made no effort to communicate or participate in the recovery process. He physically turned away from those who attempted to help him. As Jose appeared to wither away, his prognosis seemed increasingly grim. When Jose's mother was finally able to visit eight weeks after the injury, we learned that Jose believed in traditional Mexican healing practices and was convinced that he would not recover without them. With the encouragement of his father, aided by curanderismo, folk healing that works at the material, spiritual, and mental levels, Jose recovered. I became more sensitive to the sheer power of cultural tradition and belief, and perspective.
During my studies in the Licensed Vocational Nurse Program, I was exposed to a variety of clinical experiences that included intensive hands-on duties at several healthcare facilities as part of my training: ICU, Emergency Room, Sub-acute unit of a hospital, nursing homes, pediatrics, infectious disease, and family medicine. These experiences were most enjoyable and informative, providing a broad and robust foundation for further advancement. My passions are family medicine and providing care to underserved, vulnerable, and disenfranchised populations in Mexico and California.
I hope to distinguish myself in the future as a pediatric registered nurse who provides holistic care to children from medically underserved populations. I grew up in a low-income family. Thus, it will be gratifying for me to give back to the community, helping children from similar socioeconomic backgrounds heal in every way, emotionally and physically. I will engage parents in the healing process of their children, keep them informed, and educate them about the critical importance of responsive parenting and how essential it is to healthcare delivery.
My most significant contribution to society as an FNP would be health promotion and disease prevention. My ideal job would be working as a Family Nurse practitioner with an underprivileged population. I also hope to volunteer regularly in developing countries, treating patients, and passing on my skills and knowledge to local healthcare services in Mexico's and LA's underserved communities. I want to focus on children and adults for a lifetime engagement with research primarily related to the impact of diabetes on Latinos. I look forward to contributing to making healthcare more accessible to people of lower socioeconomic status. I want to practice in an urban setting where the underserved are overrepresented.
I know what it is like to lack insurance and not have the necessary funds to see a physician. It is part of my dream to play a role in the healthcare system that makes healthcare affordable and accessible to everyone, serving as a compassionate family nurse practitioner who works collaboratively with an interdisciplinary team to deliver high-quality care and improve patient outcomes. Ten years from now, I hope to build my family clinic, and 15 years from now, hopefully, start a non–profit organization that provides healthcare access to special-needs Latino patients and the working poor in general.
I discovered tremendous gratification during my rotations in family care clinical and a love for teaching. Whether clarifying vital signs for a patient, pointing out outpatient care suggestions, or translating their healthcare services, I find great satisfaction in sharing knowledge with others. I also volunteered at Los Angeles County Hospital, which exposed me to family nursing care, particularly for the underserved.
I work for Caring 4 America, LLC as a medical and transportation screener. Many of our clients are Spanish-speaking immigrants, and I oversee interpreting for them and translating their documents. I am getting the big picture and am very inspired to begin planning to build my family clinic in the future. I see myself as a nurse practitioner in the community setting, either doing family nursing or in an NP-led clinic in inner-city LA. I have also traveled to Mexico on a mission to an underserved coal mining community, providing care in their free clinic. Our dedicated team served over 1,000 Mexican residents in Spain, originally from Guerrero, Mexico, and now living in the rural communities of Santa Teresa and Ciudad Altamirano. My mission work has helped me to think creatively about ways that I can work to integrate health promotion, health maintenance, and preventative care concepts into the community to improve overall health status.
My hobbies include traveling, volunteering, reading, running, and being a parent to my 3-year-old son. I grew up in a "housing project" in Downtown Los Angeles, then moved to Northeast LA. Both LA locations where I lived rank among some of the worst in the world for violence, constant shootings, limited healthcare services, etc. I have also visited thirteen countries and twenty-two foreign cities in Europe. I connected with people of all cultures and languages and volunteered at several European medical clinics.
Thank you for considering my application.
FNP Latina in LA Entry Level Master's Degree
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