PCC Nursing Professor Toni Linck never urged her daughter Sarah to follow her footsteps and become a nurse. “I just want my children to be happy in whatever they do,” she said. Regardless, Sarah is pursuing a nursing career and is a nursing student at PCC. Since high school that has been the career path she has decided to pursue.
“In high school we did a project researching jobs. I looked into nursing,” Sarah said. “I decided it was a solid field.” She liked the service aspect of the career. “I could help people. It is fulfilling. You can make a difference in somebody’s life.” She also liked the different ways nurses can help. “You can work in the community, at schools, clinics, and doctors’ offices.”
Her mother warned her that the instruction in PCC’s Nursing program would be intense. “If you put your mind to it, you can do it,” Sarah said.
The nursing program includes normal classes and clinicals (hands-on training in a hospital or clinic). As nursing students’ education progresses, their clinicals’ experiences change, and they are active participants in direct patient care under direct supervision. The students apply the knowledge and skills learned in previous classes.
“Clinicals are a real eye opener,” said Sarah. “They can make or break you. Book work is very tedious for me. I’m a more hands-on learner.” The challenges of her clinical experience soon caused her to focus more on her studies. “When a patient asks me questions, it makes me study up more on the material. It makes you think as a nurse,” she said.
“The instructors here are wonderful,” Sarah said. “They push you, but you can always go to them for help.” She tried not to go to her mother for assistance because she didn’t want anyone to think she was getting personal favors. In fact, PCC never scheduled Sarah in one of her mother’s classes. But they did spend many hours together in the Florida Nursing Students Association (FNSA).
Sarah has been an active member since high school and has been an officer of the PCC chapter for several years. This past year, for the second year in a row, PCC received the FNSA Chapter of the Year Award. At the FNSA state convention, Professor Toni Linck received the Faculty Award for her dedication to children’s vision screening, and Sarah and fellow PCC student, Schevon Pierre, were elected as FNSA State Officers. Sarah also received the Jennifer Williams Award for her involvement in children’s vision screening. “Volunteering is very rewarding,” Sarah said. “What am I going to do—watch TV?”
Sarah will graduate in May 2009, and she has been offered a job at the Regency Medical Center (the women’s division of Winter Haven Hospital) in the Mother-Baby Postpartum Unit. She currently is working as a Nurse Tech at Regency’s Mother-Baby Unit.
It’s an area of nursing that she really enjoys. “You work with patients dealing with a big transition in their lives—being a mother. And you work with them one on one. I really like that.”