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Wenliang Zhangcarina
Professor Karen Carlisi
ESL 33B
10/18/2017
Being a nurse

Section 1

When I was busy doing my work, I usually thought whether I should keep doing it as my

career. Undergoing internship experience for one year, I successfully became a regular employee

after graduating from University in China. However, I found I wanted to make a change in my

life. I began to be bored to process a large amount of data about the various price of chemical

product and do repeated process every day. I tiredly deal with a comprehensive interpersonal

relationship in my job. Gradually, I lost my interest in my position and felt depressed, but I still

looked forward to pursuing an opportunity to change. Fortunately, a customer, who is an

enthusiastic America businessman, got to know my situation and encouraged me to seek my

dream of studying abroad. Nevertheless, when I went to America, I was confused about which

major I should choose as my career. My aunt, who had lived in America for ten years, suggested

that being a nurse would have an extended career space for development in the future. Following

her advice, I began to explore the career after transferring to Pasadena city college. The more I

knew about nurse, the more interested I was. I realized that utilizing my professional knowledge

not only comforts a variety of challenge but also helps other people to recuperate their health,

which is the most attractive aspect of being a nurse.

Although I have some understanding about the nursing major, I still doubted whether I

made a correct decision or not. Until I met a nurse in my life, I was sure I wanted to be a nurse as

my future career. One day, because of the acute enteritis, my aunt had to go to the hospital for an
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operation. Before the operation, the nurse, Mrs. Han, carefully asked the medical history and

patiently explained the procedure. I noticed she used the more straightforward word to make us

easily understand the complex medical term. On the opposite, after the doctor came, she

introduced the illness of my aunt through utilizing more professional vocabulary. Although she

was busy going to the different wards, her face was always smiling. Meanwhile, whenever I

asked her for help, she always enthusiastically responded to me and actively solved the problem.

Her profession and her working status deeply touched me and made me be more certain of being

a nurse.

There are two primary external motivations that push me to insist on being a nurse as my

career. Because of the repeated and tedious working context, I gave up my previous the job.

However, when I was in the hospital, I noticed that a nurse had to deal with various problem and

emergencies, which implied that nursing work was full of all kinds of challenges and be in a

faster-peace of work. I realized that nursing work attracted me deeply. Moreover, comforting the

difficulty could increase my capacity and lead me to continuously learn the new knowledge.

Also, when I was in the hospital, I asked several nurses a similar question why they always look

like happiness during the job. I got the same answer that when the patient recovered health, they

would get a lot of satisfaction. I remembered that there was an old saying in China, Helping

people to be happy. Being a nurse not only could exercise the ability but also harvest

happiness.

In addition to the external motivation, the internal factor makes me desire a change that

being a nurse will train my personality. Due to my shy characteristic, I am afraid to talk to the

stranger and unfamiliar people. However, being a nurse can offer an opportunity to reach much

more different people in the process of work. In the hospital, a nurse not only needs to
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communicate with her colleagues but also requires maintaining good communication with their

patients. Therefore, being a nurse can shape my personality and get a better development in the

future career. After exploring more information about nursing, I realized that breakthrough my

language barrier is necessary for me to be a nurse. Firstly, I acquire to learn how to critical

thinking and I should have an essential language skill in my college, which will help me have a

professional academy. And then enhancing oral communication skill will help me increase my

working efficiency.

In conclusion, I know being a nurse will be full of various challenge but I still look forward

to helping people who were illness to regain their health through my professional knowledge and

skills. As exploring more information about my career, I gradually realized that the development

of a nurse is influenced by other significant skills except have professional knowledge.

Section 2: Explanation and Description of Discourse Community

Looking around, there is a group of people you have the same goals, similar job

environment and you utilize the professional language term to communicate with each other,

especially the language plays a crucial role in this community. Also, in the article A

conceptualization of discourse community, written by Swales, the author states that A

discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant

content and discoursal expertise (27). It implies that although person in the discourse

community may have different degree background and job experience, they will have a clear

division of labor to work together. For instance, trying the best to make patient be health is the

common goal in the discourse community of nursing. A group of people in the hospital are

doctors, unregistered dietitians, practice nursing, resisted nursing and physical therapist make a

cooperation to each other by communicating the highly professional medical language. In order
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to know my discourse community, I invited a resisted nurse to make an interview and further

understand how important role the language plays in the process of nursing job.

On the Sunday afternoon, when I arrived at the star buck ten minutes beforehand, my

interviewee had been there. I was curious about why she always came early. I got the answer

that because of her work, she formed a habit to leave some time and do the preparation before

starting one day job, which it grew my curiosity and made me eagerly know the daily nursing

work. Mrs. Han, who is a registered nurse had five years work experiment. Now she works in

the Alhambra Medical Center. She said she loves her job so much. Comparing to obtain the

satisfaction and happiness in her career, she thought bearing the stress is so insignificant. When

my aunt made an operation, she was the charge nurse. Whatever I meet her in job or life, she

always enthusiastically helps other people, such as this interview. When I sent the email to her,

she replied me without any hesitation. After this interview, I realized that critical thinking and

communication skills are a nursing tools that must constantly be utilized throughout a day on

duty.

Above all, learning critical think is the first step for being a good nurse in the process of the

daily job. There is an enormous number of problems that a nurse needs to confront and handle on

duty. The most effective strategy of critical thinking is asking myself question, which will

contribute me to getting a clear orientation. And asking myself question is also a studying

process. The nurse Han said when she had received a report of the patient care, she began to ask

herself a series of questions. For example, what was the problem she was looking at? What was

the evidence she had? What could she do to intervene? What was the priority here? Constant

self- questioning will guide a nurse to know which aspects and treatments are uncertain and

vague. Mrs. Han explained the more question she asked, the clearer direction she got, which
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would help her to keep calm and avoid the error. Meanwhile, collecting and analyzing data is

essential step for a nurse to build up a comprehensive assessment of her patient, which benefits a

nurse to make a correct judgment and offer the safer health care in the job. On the contrary,

missing the information and falsely analyzing the data will cause to be fatal error even endanger

the safety of the patient. Mrs. Han gave me a specific example. A blood pressure of 93 to 122

might seem acceptable in a patient who was fresh out of an operation room and might not be

recognized as a reportable sign by a nurse in any way. However, a well-trained nurse would have

the ability to analyze the data she collected. If a nurse realized that this patients diastolic blood

pressure went up from 75mm Hg, it might have alerted that this patent might be in a

compensatory hypovolemic shock which caused by internal blooding. Through this specific

illustration, I found that critical thinking is a necessary skill for a nurse to display every step in

detail during the job. In addition, there is another skill Mrs. Han mentioned in the interview,

which it also plays a significant role in being a nurse.

Useful communication skill could avoid the error, raise efficiency and have a positive

influence on the attitude of the patient. Through a higher level of oral communication skill,

building up a good relationship with a patient may help a nurse to understand illness better and

make an accurate estimation. An effective verbal communication will give patient confidence to

eliminate nervousness, apprehensiveness and actively cooperate during treatment. For example,

before seeing a doctor, a nurse first asks a series of question to know about the medical history of

a patient, for example, Have you ever been allergic to any medicine? Do you have a family

history of heart disease? Moreover, a good communication skill will strengthen cooperation as a

team of health care. Mrs. Han said the majority of patient care must be carried out

collaboratively a team of health care providers, specialized in various aspects. While other
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medical team members, such as physicians, physical therapists, and registered dietitians. They

may come and go to check on patients from time to time. These professional works significantly

rely on the nurses assessment, documentation, and their communication with other medical

experts based on their findings. Therefore, it is vital for nurses to be equipped with a certain level

of professional communication skill in order to bring out the most effective patient care. Mrs.

Han emphasized that knowing how to speak was essential as knowing how to listen to a

conversation. Miscommunication or misunderstanding was one of common cause of medical

errors. In addition, a better-written communication for a nurse will enhance her work efficiency.

After collecting and analyzing the data, a nurse needs to write a specific health assessment that

helps the other team or colleague to formulate reasonable therapeutic plan and monitor the

patients condition. Hence, knowing how to communicate effectively will become the most

practical tool in the nursing service.

Lastly, I discussed what the most important internal resource is for being a nurse with my

interviewee. Mrs. Han answered that patient, sense of responsibility and tolerance were equally

important and indispensable character to being a nurse. Due to suffering the pain of disease, most

of patient usually have a negative attitude to accept treatment. Under this situation, patients

nursing not only alleviates disease but also improves the therapeutic relationship between nurses

and their clients. Moreover, confronting many patients for being a nurse need to have strong

sense of responsibility to monitor and reflect the situation of patient in time in order to offer safe

health care.

Section 3 Conclusion

Being a nursing is not only full of challenge to harvest the satisfaction but also is a good

way to training my language sill. However, how to stride over language obstacles is the most
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difficult problem for me.Now, this is my second year in Pasadena city college; I think I still have

time to make a great preparation and master a solid foundation of language in order to be a nurse.

Typically, doing much more grammar exercise make sure I have an essential written skill. For

example, I may participate in some grammatical workshop of ESL center. And then, increasing

my reading quantity learn the vocabulary, set-phrase and sentence structure through analyzing

the context. I also can improve my critical thinking through making summary and response. I

believe I can make progress and have a strong language fundament through my effort before

graduating from my college.

Work cited

John M. Swales. The Concept of Discourse Community. Genre Analysis English in academic

and research settings.

Mrs. Han (2017, October 7). Personal interview.