Nursing School Mergers and Remergers: Myrna’s Story

I remember attending a reception with my parents within the spring before my freshman yr on the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) School of Nursing in Philadelphia. My mom was talking to a different parent and I by chance joined the conversation. We learned that she and her daughter Lisa Morris (Bonsall) are from the identical small town on Long Island. We attended different schools and that is why we never met. Call it coincidence or fate, we became fast friends. We each enrolled within the freshman program in August to organize for the tutorial rigors of an Ivy League institution. After this system ended, we felt we were ready. Contrary to this belief, when the college yr began, it was extremely difficult for me. In my first yr of school, the course load was very heavy and the quantity of data we needed to memorize and synthesize was overwhelming at times. We managed to survive the primary yr despite quite a few distractions: parties, co-ed dorms, football games, and starting a fraternity.

Our second yr of school brought the start of our clinical rotations and the top of our nightly parties. While our non-nursing classmates slept until noon, we were up by 6 a.m. to get to our clinical site for a full day of patient care. I remember learning the fundamentals of secure nursing practice, administering medications, and treating disease. I’ll always remember the technique of nurturing and writing care plans for all of our patients, each of which included assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation. The hands-on, hands-on education continued throughout junior and senior years, providing opportunities to benefit from the various liberal arts activities Penn had to supply. Lisa and I survived this era and each graduated with bachelor’s degrees in nursing (BSN). It was 1994 and it was our turn to make a difference.

Lisa selected to stay in Philadelphia and accepted a position within the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) on the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP). I headed to the Big Apple to begin my profession at NYU Medical Center as a Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) nurse. After 4 years of coaching at Penn, I felt confident again that I used to be ready. However, I quickly realized that I still had lots to learn. Each disease and surgery involved many complexities. Each patient’s recovery varied depending on many aspects and comorbidities. I improved my assessment skills and learned critical pondering. It was stressful and I loved patient care, but after a number of years within the intensive care unit at NYU, I noticed I desired to do more. I used to be able to return to highschool, and Penn was the plain selection.

Lisa got here to the identical conclusion and, around the identical time, began graduate school at Penn to pursue a sophisticated practice nursing degree in women’s health. I used to be intrigued by the healthcare business and decided to focus my graduate studies on hospital and healthcare management. During our studies, we each worked full-time and plenty of night shifts in our respective intensive care units. We found ourselves back within the Biomedical Library, spending countless hours studying for exams, writing papers, and preparing for presentations. After completing our master’s degree, our pursuits took different directions. Lisa began her publishing and writing profession with Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. I accepted a position in Vaccine Clinical Trials at Merck & Co., Inc.

My husband’s job took us from Philadelphia to San Antonio and we eventually settled in Denver, Colorado. After several years of working in pharmaceutical research and traveling extensively, I took a risk, left the industry and went to work for a small start-up educational company that provided medical simulation training to healthcare professionals. We have developed interactive clinical scenarios for treating patients’ diseases. Given her clinical expertise within the ICU, I contacted Lisa to jot down some sepsis case studies for us. These cases served as the premise for an intensive care program used to coach hundreds of doctors across the country. It was great to work with Lisa again and reconnect after so a few years.

Balancing family and profession became tougher after the birth of my second son, so I made a decision to take some break day work to boost my two sons. It was an exquisite four-year break that I’ll at all times remember fondly. At the top of this break, Lisa got here to Denver to attend a nursing conference. We met for lunch and I shared together with her my desire to return to work. She remembered our conversation and a yr later called me with a job offer because her responsibilities and workload had increased enormously. I used to be grateful to give you the option to return to the workforce using each my writing and clinical skills. We currently collaborate on many nursing topics to supply educational resources to hundreds of thousands of nurses around the globe.

It’s hard to imagine that it has been over 20 years since Lisa and I accomplished our undergraduate degrees at Penn. I actually imagine we were destined to fulfill and reconnect after college. Although we should not currently on the bedside full time, we proceed to make significant and impactful contributions to the nursing occupation. Nursing actually opens up a world of opportunities, but it surely’s as much as each individual to take full advantage of them. Personally, I actually have little question that college provided me with a tremendous education, but it surely was the friendships I made that really modified my life. For those of you who’re going back to highschool in the autumn, enjoy every moment and treasure the people you meet because they could be just as necessary, if no more necessary, than the teachings you receive within the classroom.

Myrna B. Schnur, RN, MSNAND

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