The BSN to DNP Program in Nurse Anesthesia at the University of XXXX is my first choice for graduate study because I am looking forward to a long and fulfilling career as a CRNA and I see your program as the finest in the State of Florida. Miami is also my home. Both of my parents immigrated to the USA from Haiti. Even though I was born and raised in Miami, therefore, I have Haitian roots and I feel a special calling for helping the underserved residents of Haiti.
I have already been to Haiti twice helping out on 2-week medical missions, in 2003 and 2009. I can testify that well-trained medical professionals able to speak the language, Creole, are very much in short supply. I hope to be selected at least in part on the basis of my potential contribution to the underserved of my land of origin.
I could not more fully embrace everything having to do with heath-promotion, eating healthy, exercise, and staying fully fit is part of my personal routine. At the same time that I spend much of my time reading and learning about Preventive Medicine, however, my visits to Haiti on medical missions, in addition to my day to day experiences at our hospital have filled me with inspiration and determination to become a CRNA and returning to Haiti as an anesthetist in support of teams of surgeons. In 2010, only months after my last trip to Haiti, the island was struck by one of the most devastating earthquakes in history with untold suffering. As I watched the images of the wounded on the television in Miami, I wept with the most wrenching desperation because I wanted to return so badly, although my circumstances did not allow me to do so. At these moments, however, my sense of calling became especially clear to me.
I now have extensive experience as a registered nurse (RN) in critical care, beginning in my present position with the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) at XXXX Hospital in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, in June of 2015. We do a lot of heart surgery and our team is renowned for highly skilled nurses and state-of-the-art management of critical care patients. I have always given 100% which enabled me to achieve within a few months the high level of competency of other nurses who have been here much longer. I hit the ground running and every day I continue to learn valuable things as a result of my high level of motivation to always excel and continue to improve the quality of the care that I am able to provide.
Working on a unit with a high level of patient acuity requires me to use an immense amount of critical thinking skill at the same time that I have to make rapid decisions. I care for post-operative open heart patients with meticulous attention to detail, constantly on the watch for any deterioration in their condition. Post-operative open heart surgery patients require invasive monitoring such as Swan-Ganz catheters and I have become especially skilled in the management of hemodynamics. I have acquired experience in the use of a range of vasoactive and anesthetic medications as well as mechanical devices that support heart, lung, and kidney functions.
On December 10, 2004, I became a patient myself and needed an outpatient surgical procedure. My CRNA, XXXX, made me feel comfortable and inspired me with confidence in her ability to put me under anesthesia and make sure that I would be fine. She let me know that she would take care of me while I was unconscious. XXXX exemplified professionalism, a caring attitude, respect, humility, and affability. She models the type of anesthetist and professional I strive to become.
I feel strongly that it is a very special privilege to care for patients in their most critical and vulnerable moments just out of surgery and in the post anesthesia phase. For some time now, I have had vast opportunity to closely observe CRNAs administer anesthesia prior to and after surgery. I admire the ability of CRNAs to multitask during open heart surgery: controlling the patient’s consciousness and hemodynamics, at the same time that they ensure adequate ventilations. I admire their great agility at intubation and transesophageal echocardiogram; this high level of skill is what attracts me to this profession. I crave the responsibility, with proficient and highly accurate attention to detail. Each time the CRNA brings us a new patient to the CVIVU and discusses the case with me, it is a moment when I feel admiration, inspiration, motivation, and encouragement.
My principle short-term goal is to fully dedicate myself to thirty-six months of learning the complexity of anesthesia administration at the University of XXXX, so as to become a highly trained CRNA prepared to excel in the workforce. My long-term goal is to eventually provide my expertise pro bono to Haiti, my family’s land of origin and where I am able to speak and understand the language of the underserved. Here in America, I look forward to serving as a CRNA for a team of heart surgeons. In Haiti, I look forward to serving in support of general surgeons operating on some of the poorest residents of the most impoverished nation in the hemisphere, blighted by natural disasters.
I hope to participate in the future in research concerning how to improve nurse to patient ratios in hospitals in the United States so as to provide more individualized patient care. Also look forward to advocating for advance practice nurses to be able to care for patients more independently of physicians with the ability to bill patients and insurance for services.
I am fully aware of the sacrifice plus dedication that it will take to become a CRNA, yet I crave the challenge and the rigors of your program. If selected for your competitive program, I will remain focused and give it my all.
I thank you for considering my application to Nurse Anesthesia at the University of XXXX.
