CRNA Admission Mission Bound Personal Statement
I was born and raised in China in a working-class family for whom life was a constant struggle. My mother affectionately referred to me as her ‘little cockroach’ because I am a survivor. My break came at 19 years old when I was accepted to the Summer Working and Traveling Program that was suggested to me by my English teacher. I began cleaning toilets for minimum wage almost as soon as I arrived in America. I loved it because I loved being in America, the blue sky, and the endless opportunity. The toilets were only the beginning. By my second year in the USA, I was studying Nursing at a community college.
English was a challenge at first, but I was not alone, and I persevered. I would wake up at 4 am every day and not sleep until 10 pm. Almost from the beginning, I made a special effort to learn the vocabulary that would be most helpful for nursing. I still have all of my old textbooks covered in Chinese translations. I failed the first exam in Nursing School but picked myself up and went forward.
I chose Nursing because I am a compassionate young woman who has always enjoyed caring for sick friends and family. I also wanted to contribute to resolving the nursing shortage in America. The highest short-term dream to which I could aspire is to be selected for the DNP Program in Nurse Anesthesia at the University of ____. I will feel most comfortable at U__ due to the diversity and liberal values of the school and the surrounding community. When I left China, I had never considered nursing in the USA, but when someone told me I could attend school here, I went that afternoon to a community college and told them I wanted to be a student. They offered me an I-94 visa the same day. They could understand me, even though I barely spoke English and the process was smooth and easy. I achieved my little American dream that afternoon and got to stay in the USA. Around the same time, I talked with my neighbor, who mentioned that her daughter was a nurse and always working overtime because there are never enough nurses. I concluded that I could survive in the USA if I picked nursing as my major because I would always have work and could have all the shifts that I wanted.
I aspire to become the kind of CRNA who goes on missions for as long and as often as possible, especially as my career progresses and particularly where the Mandarin language. I watch with horror as my country of origin is engulfed in COVID-19, and I hope to return someday to China as a volunteer CRNA on a mission to care for Mandarin speakers in crisis. Last October, as I observed China’s medical mission to Africa, I felt proud to be Chinese (Chinese medical teams land in Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, 2022). I could not be more pleased that the number of Mandarin speakers in America is also rising rapidly, as this enhances the professional contribution that I can make to the Nurse Anesthesia community. The absolute pinnacle for me as a CRNA would be to research and publish concerning ways to make nurse anesthesia safer in China, especially by reducing nurse fatigue.
It took me several years of full-time study before I hit my stride in English at a college level. My grades steadily improved throughout my nursing program, however, and it is my hope that this will be seen as a better indicator of my potential for excellence as a DNP student in Nurse Anesthesia at the University of South Florida (USF) than my grades at the beginning of the program. I graduated from nursing school in the summer of 2018 and followed my ex-husband to Florida. That fall I accepted a position at Advent Health of East Orlando. I focused exclusively on my work, accepting all of the long hours that were offered. I did my very best and learned to speak up on behalf of my patients which was thrilling. The other nurses began to appreciate me for volunteering for duties that no one else wanted. I lived in fear of miscommunication, but I soon started sleeping better at night and hitting my stride.
When the pandemic hit, I became a traveling nurse in 2020 looking for new opportunities to serve. My epiphany in 2020 was the discharge of a COVID-19 patient from the ICU who had been intubated for three months. I had been taking care of her for that last month, the joy, the celebration, was especially memorable that day but we would celebrate each time one of our chronic patients headed to the door. I always focus on hope even in a darkening world like our own. Becoming a travel nurse allowed me to have many rich and novel experiences in nursing. I have developed strong critical thinking skills, and my hands-on nursing skills are even better. I have even had patients tell me they feel like they are in China.
Thank you for considering my application.
CRNA Admission Mission Bound Personal Statement
List of References
Chinese medical teams land in Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://macaonews.org/portuguese-speaking-countries/chinese-medical-teams-land-in-mozambique-and-guinea-bissau/
Ying-J. Du1 , Xin-Q. Zhang2 , Li-D. Liu3 , Jin-Y. Zhang4 , Ning Han5 and Gu-Y. Wang1 (n.d.). Overfatigue amongst Chinese anaesthesiologists from 2017 to 2019. Retrieved from https://www.bjanaesthesia.org/article/S0007-0912(20)30790-X/pdf
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