“You’re just a nurse.”
A statement made by a colleague, forever stained in my memory.
“You’re just a nurse.”
As if to assume my chosen undergraduate degree placed a glass ceiling on my knowledge and expertise in regards to the healthcare of my patient.
“I’m just a nurse.”
That narrative caused such self-doubt, I almost gave up on applying to physician assistant (PA) school in the first place. It is a vulnerable place where many pre-PA students find themselves during application season. But now, mere weeks away from finishing up the pre-clinical year, I am here to tell you to keep going. Keep fighting, and own your path to PA school, no matter how non-traditional it may seem.
For me, it was never a question of if I would choose to pursue a graduate degree and become an advanced practice provider, it was when. I originally entered the healthcare arena following a passion for medicine. In a high school discovery program, after shadowing various members of the healthcare team, I fell in love with the bedside and the opportunity to connect with a patient in a way only a nurse could. Instead of jumping right into the PA pathway for an undergraduate degree, I decided on the field of nursing with a career as a registered nurse (RN) on a trauma and orthopedics unit. When the time came to announce my intention to move my education to the next level and become the provider myself, I was met with an “it’s about time” from my colleagues. That was until I announced my intention was to become a PA, not a nurse practitioner (NP).
The decision to choose this road less traveled was not one I came to overnight, but it was the one I knew I needed. I wanted the opportunity to combine a medical based education and lateral flexibility of the PA career with that of my prior training: the nursing education model and bedside experience. As my girl Miley Cyrus once told me, “Mix it all together and you know that it’s the best of both worlds!”
I was so blessed to find a home here at the Duke Physician Assistant Program where I am able to get that perfect mix. They appreciate the background and experience I brought to the program while simultaneously helping me grow and prepare for my new career. I have also been able to help dispel the myths of the “just a nurse” narrative by representing the program on the Interprofessional Education and Care (IPEC) Center’s Student Advisory Committee. Through my work there I am able to serve alongside other healthcare professional students here at Duke to bring change and new educational opportunities to both the Schools of Medicine and Nursing to open avenues of understanding and appreciation for our future colleagues.
Regardless of what path you come from, it can be hard to escape the “you’re just a ___” narrative.
What matters is how you use your story to challenge that assumption. Here at Duke, my peers prove day in and day out that they are more than “just” a parent, “just” a medical assistant, “just” a respiratory therapist, “just” a scrub tech…they are courageous leaders, brilliant scientists, critically thinking, advocating, hard-working future clinicians ready to take on the ever-changing world of medicine. And as for me, I am not “just” a nurse. I am a nurse, who is one day going to make one heck of Physician Assistant.
Sami Moyer is a first-year student with the Duke Physician Assistant Program. Email samantha.moyer@duke.edu with questions.
Editor’s note: Duke Physician Assistant Program students blog twice a month. Blogs represent the opinion of the author, not the Duke Physician Assistant Program, the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, or Duke University.