INSPIRED TO HEAL
A fulfilling but demanding career in nursing comes naturally to those from a military background
WHEN Rego Park resident Matthew Smith attended boot camp in 2012 as a Navy hospital corpsman, a profound sight made him stop in his tracks.
“Four servicemen were wheeled out by their wives. They must have been fresh from Afghanistan, and were missing at least two limbs apiece.”
Smith also observed the servicemen managed to be chatty and cheerful. Meanwhile, Smith was floored and devastated as he also noticed their skin grafts from burns.
“I started to tear up ... I also knew they needed platelets [components of blood] — clotting concentrates to shore up those skin grafts.”
Smith had already donated blood earlier that week, so was unable to give platelets until 54 days had elapsed. Frustrated and annoyed, he realized that although he couldn’t donate, other sailors in the corpsman school could.
Inspired, he rallied the troops — literally. Smith marched donors to the center at 4:15 a.m. on weekdays for six consecutive weeks, getting hundreds of sailors to donate platelets and blood.
Smith ultimately received a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal for his work, but more than that, the gesture solidified his post-military career plans.
“That’s when I knew I made the right decision. Nursing would be for me,” he says.
Currently enrolled in nursing school at Touro College in Brooklyn, Smith is on track to finish next year and sit for the NCLEX exam to pass the state boards to become a registered nurse.
“Nursing school is tougher than you would think,” he says. “Squeaking out a B in nursing fundamentals or medical surgical nursing feels like you just won the Super Bowl.”
In addition to pursuing this rewarding career path, he’s locking down job security in a vocation that’s in high demand. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, nursing is expected to grow by 31 percent by 2024, considerably faster than the national average for all occupations.
Mary Ellen Luczun, MSN, RN, PMHCNS-BC, and assistant professor at Touro, says that in general, veterans like Smith are typically inquisitive, information-seeking and reflective.
“These are qualities essential to data-gathering and nursing assessment of patients, the first step of the nursing process,” she explains.
Luczun also points out that veterans who served as medics or hospital corpsmen and women also possess clinical skills applicable to nursing, along with experience working among interdisciplinary health care teams.
That’s what Susan Hopper refers to as her new battle buddies. The Army nurse, reservist, served in multiple locations and was deployed with a combat support hospital to Iraq. Since returning home from Iraq in 2006, she’s been an emergency-room nurse at Montefiore in The Bronx.
Currently pursuing her doctoral degree at Pace University, Hopper notes, “Your nursing colleagues and friends will be the closest thing you will ever have to your battle buddies, the most sacred of all. And if you should be so lucky to find a fellow veteran who is a nurse, you have found the ultimate colleague!”
Veterans can also relate to nursing’s 12-hour shifts, foregoing bathroom breaks during that time.
Work isn’t easy, she notes, and although you go home exhausted, you’re “rewarded beyond all of your dreams.”
Smith agrees. “I don’t think there can be anything else that combines human drama with nobility of purpose more than nursing,” he says. “That, and finally being surrounded by women instead of dudes all the time!”