The Leader I Didn't Know I Wanted to Be by Krystal

The Leader I Didn't Know I Wanted to Be by Krystal - October 2019 Scholarship Essay

I have known I wanted to be a nurse for as long as I can remember. As the oldest of five children, I remember being inspired by the smart, caring nurses that took care of my mom during her high-risk pregnancy hospitalizations. It was during that time that I really started picturing what my life could look like as a nurse. Coming from a family of small-town farmers, this was a totally different lifestyle than any of us were familiar with. On top of pursuing a career that no one else in my family was familiar with, I also was a first-generation college student. Therefore, I felt I had no choice but to work incredibly hard to pursue excellence in my career.

It was during my time at Winona State University that I first encountered the type of nurse that I wanted to be; her name was Dr. Catherine Nosek, and she was my nursing instructor for pathophysiology and high acuity simulation. This course was one of the most difficult courses in the program, but her passion and methods of teaching made this my favorite course.

Dr. Nosek’s career background was in emergency and critical care medicine, so she had seemingly endless case studies and examples from her career for us to use in our coursework and simulation scenarios. She helped us relate the content we were learning in our textbooks to real life situations. She was the type of professor that had incredibly high expectations of her students and had firm deadlines and grading policies, but her students had so much respect for her that no one wanted to let her down. When her classes ended, it always felt like a cliffhanger; I always wanted to hear more!

Her class also incorporated a simulation lab portion, which was my first introduction to simulation. She made the simulation scenarios very realistic and forced us to “think out loud” through our thought processes. We also learned to work together as a team and delegate tasks to each other as appropriate.
She challenged each one of us to use critical thinking skills to perform the tasks that she presented to us, and I had no appreciation at that time for just how important the critical thinking aspect of learning was. It was this class that solidified my goal for working in critical care as soon as an opportunity presented itself in my career.

During my undergraduate years, Dr. Nosek was always a huge support of my work and provided letters of recommendation for me during my initial job search. Here I was, a new graduate nurse looking for her first job as a registered nurse, and in the letter of recommendation she provided for me she already stated that I would be a great candidate for graduate studies. What an incredible and supportive statement to read in a letter helping me get my nursing career started!

I was blessed enough to be able to start my career at a large level 2 trauma center, where I was able to work in the adult medical, surgical, trauma, neurological, and cardiovascular intensive care units. While working there, I always had Dr. Nosek’s stories and words of wisdom in the back of my mind.

Once I got settled in as a nurse for a few years, I learned something more about myself: I enjoyed leadership opportunities above and beyond the work as a bedside nurse. I am currently the education coordinator in a busy surgical department, and continually am looking for performance improvement projects, research, and other initiatives to improve efficiency and safety for staff and patients. I also use her inspiration to carry out simulation work with my staff to help them critically think through scenarios to ensure they are as prepared as they can be for various situations.

Dr. Nosek may never know the impact that she has had on my career, but she truly has been an inspiration. Daily, I strive to be the leader that shares my passion for what I do in such a way that those around me want to live up to the expectations I have of them. I now am pursuing graduate studies and will graduate with both a Master of Science in Nursing Administration and a Master of Business Administration. I hope some day to inspire someone else the way that she has inspired me.