Medically-inclined: Sophomore Kate Amos gets ready for a career in nursing
A dead body. (Okay, not a REAL dead body … but a mannequin, like one, would see in a crime scene enactment.)
That’s what started sophomore Kate Amos’ interest in pursuing a career in the medical field.
While this may seem like a contradiction -- after all, most professions in the medical field are based on working with people who are alive -- Amos’ first week in Biomed turned her future plans from education to medicine.
“It’s actually really weird; I used to want to be a teacher, and then all of a sudden when I was in Biomed -- when we were discovering the ‘dead’ body during the crime lab -- I was like, ‘I want to help prevent people from being sick and dying,’” she explained. “Then, we started working on the clinical stuff and I really liked the feel of that. I’d really like a future in it.”
At the very beginning stages of pursuing a career in medicine, Amos explained the path she was planning to take. “I don’t know too much about it yet, because I haven’t done all my research, but I took Biomed, and I hope to take a lot more science classes next year and the year after,” she said. “I’m also thinking about going to Area 31 for the Medical Assistance Program. You learn how to put in IV’s and stuff like that.”
If things go as planned, starting IV’s will be one of the many tasks that Amos performs in a behind-the-scenes role, as she doesn’t want the pressure of making “big” decisions, like those required of medical doctors. “I like nursing skills, where you get to do the ‘little things,’” she said. “You get to help doctors diagnose and administer medicine and comfort the patient.”
From the delivery room to the emergency room, nurses can perform their duties in a variety of areas. For Amos, she hopes to end up as a pediatric nurse. “I really love kids, so I want to be either a pediatric nurse and work in the child ward and help them or I want to work in the ER and help with the trauma and getting them prepped for stuff,” said Amos.
Trauma is something Amos has recent firsthand experience with. At summer camp, she smacked her mouth with a picnic bench and was pretty sure she was headed to the ER herself. “I bit my lip and it was black inside,” she said. “We were looking at it and I was like, ‘I think I’m going to need stitches.’”
Fortunately for her, stitches were not required -- just antibiotics and numbing cream for a week. Even though the injury didn’t feel great, it gave Amos an inside look at some elements of her future career -- and didn’t dull her enthusiasm for nursing one bit.
“[I’m excited about] how [medicine] is different for every person,” said Amos. “There will be different experiences that I’ll go through with different outcomes.”
Like seeing a ‘dead’ body -- and deciding to become a nurse.
Story by Connor Burress