Nursing in different places

I am in my third year of bilingual nursing and have learned a lot since becoming a part of this program. My knowledge on clinical pathologies and experiences only continues to expand. However, going into my first year, I felt extensively underprepared, and this coincided with my initial feeling of being an imposter - a feeling that I would later come to expect regularly. 

Occasionally, I would get discouraged at the prospect of being in such an intense program for four years and think to myself, “what’s the point?” Nursing school takes a lot of perseverance, and I am now confident in the notion that the end will justify the means. 

If I could tell the bilingual students just starting out one thing, it would be the importance of creating ties, study groups and friendships within the faculty. I found it challenging to connect with the other students during my first year, which is a consequence of all of our classes being online. Fortunately, I was able to join a study group that helped me drastically with my studies and eventually became some of my closest friends. 

I believe that making friends in different faculties is an important part of the university experience. However, the only people that authentically understand what it’s like to have our course load, assignments and clinicals are the other nursing students who are also going through the exact same thing. Coming to this realization made me feel less like an imposter when I was with my peers. Which in turn created a sense of camaraderie. Our smaller cohort shared almost all the same classes during the first two years of this program, which really helped our bilingual cohort feel like a small community and fostered an experience with less of an anonymous sentiment. I encourage other students to get involved because you will gain a better idea of the importance and impact of our program. This made me better acquainted with my purpose as a nurse, which in turn caused my initial feeling of doubt and feeling like an imposter to dissipate.

This past fall, I had the opportunity to volunteer as the student lead for the Rural Health Professions Action Plan (RhPAP) rural excursion. 23 bilingual students went to St. Paul and Elk Pointe for a weekend in October. I volunteered because I have lived in Edmonton my whole life and was curious as to what smaller rural hospitals have to offer. I think I can speak for all the students when I say that even though we didn’t really know what to expect going into the weekend, this experience was a very positive one – not only for our perception of rural health care but by actually being immersed in a community with a large francophone population, we were able to observe firsthand the importance and absolute need for bilingual nurses. We all looked forward to the skills day, where healthcare workers from the area volunteered their time to teach us. There was a physician who did a suturing station, another physician who showed us how to apply casts and paramedic workers who demonstrated spinal immobilization. 

During the RhPAP excursion, I was asked many times by the other students if I would really consider going rural. I expressed to my peers that initially, I was a bit skeptical, but after this experience in a rural area where there are many Francophones and French speakers, I was able to observe the actual demand for bilingual health care professionals. This helped sway me and open my eyes to a whole different type of nursing I had never strongly considered for myself. I would absolutely consider working in a rural setting, but I haven’t made any definite decisions. What many of the staff that relocated to this area reiterated was that they acquired this feeling of becoming a jack of all trades due to their vast range of experiences working in a rural hospital. 

“Active offer,” or “offre active” in French, means to confidently offer and provide quality French health services upon the first contact with a patient. We have been taught about the importance of active offer since essentially the very first week of this program, but it is hard to conceptualize the impact until you are immersed in a situation that requires being not only a French speaker but a French speaker with health literacy. I would advise future students to volunteer for experiences such as this because there are many opportunities within our program to learn, grow and gain perspective that will help guide you in future endeavours. 

I started off this program filled with doubt. Not necessarily about the quality of my education, but I was filled with doubt about my role and purpose in nursing and if I was cut out for this career. In my second year, I began to understand my role, but my doubt grew into hesitation as I tried to adapt to the new experiences of being on campus, seeing my classmates face to face and, of course, the clinical learning. 

However, when I reflect on this past year, I realize I have grown to become prouder of my accomplishments and slowly, day by day, more confident in this career. Admittedly those feelings of being an imposter can still occur, but they are now less intimidating as I have my friends around me who are sharing this experience. This program is challenging, but I genuinely can’t see myself anywhere else. Consequently, my mindset has shifted to accepting the notion that when I am unfamiliar with something, it is just another learning opportunity. Ultimately this notion of being an imposter stems from my doubt, which has evolved into a certain level of confidence. I have grown to be proud of where I am, the program I am in and the career that I will have.