Scholarship Essay Entry – Samantha V.

In our society, there are so many different careers and lifestyles available that people often find it difficult to decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives. However this was never the case for me. Ever since I can remember, I have been extremely intrigued by the medical field. As a child, you could always find me playing nurse with my sisters, dolls, or even my dogs. Whenever anyone had the slightest cut or bruise, I would make sure to fix them up and make them feel good as new. As the years progressed, I realized that helping people was not just something I liked to do for fun, it was what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. Thousands of people every day require immediate medical attention, and if there aren’t enough qualified professionals and health care facilities, these people cannot be given the proper care they need. More than any other age group, seniors are often put in a position where there are not enough beds or caretakers for their severe medical needs to be met. This is the reason why I am going to school for my Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and plan to become a geriatric nurse.

If you look around you at the world today, you will see that the population of senior citizens is steadily increasing. With the aging of the baby boomer generation, more and more people everyday are requiring long term care. This is becoming a growing problem for the  health care industry, who cannot keep up to the high demand of beds in long term care facilities and health care professionals to care for these ailing citizens. These people have done a lot for our country and our communities, and I feel as if they deserve to be treated with the utmost respect, and given the best care possible. Most new nursing students dream of working in paediatrics, or in the emergency room; I have yet to talk to anyone who plans to go into geriatrics. This worries me even more, because if no new nurses are willing to work with elderly patients, who is there going to be to take care of these people five or ten years from now? I feel like if in four years from now I can be working in geriatrics, I will truly be making a difference in the world.

When I think about my future, I wonder if there will be people willing to take care of me in my old age. It’s worrisome to think that I may end up not getting proper care because there aren’t enough professionals to handle the senior citizen population. Think about this. Do YOU want to end up being turned away from long term care simply because there are not enough health care providers? Helping the senior citizen population NOW is not only in their best interest, but in the best interest of countless generations to come.