SPRING 2019 CLASS PROFILE
I feel like I'm the front-line, as a clinic nurse. I see walk-in patients and triage their needs. I empower and educate patients in English and Spanish. I remind patients that they are important, they are seen, they matter because they are God's children. I have become 1,000 times more vocal and confident about spreading the gospel. Sharing the gospel and praying for patients is like next to breathing. I even spread the gospel to our pediatric patients who don't know love, only know emotionally unavailable adults and believe they are unlovable. Recently, now that I see male patients, I even share God's love with our male patients who are discarded and broken.
Here in Lawndale, the work is plenty and on my walk or drive to work each morning I can't help but have my heart-broken for the same suffering that breaks Jesus's heart. There is not one drive to work that I do not see a patient or neighbor of mine still homeless, still strung out on drugs, still prostituting, still believing Satan's lies. My children and I intentionally call out to greet them and tell them we don't have money but we have food and say bless you! I have taught my children that looking into our neighbor's eyes and reminding them that they are human and that they are liked is better than our spare change. As a woman of color living here in the community, I can't help but be a role model for our young Latinas. I am intentional to pour life into them and their dreams of higher education, surviving teen years without becoming pregnant and being reminding them that they are lovable, despite their boyfriends' words and actions, their parents' words and actions, they are lovable.
Walk-in and scheduled patients, probably about 25.
Some visits are histories and/or patient education visits and take longer.
Phone call triage, another 25. A big part of my job is to follow-up or triage phone calls for providers.
It's simple. My budget just wouldn't have worked to live here in Lawndale, have pursued my dreams to be a Nurse Practitioner at the local University while working part-time, have had 3 beautiful children all in the last 7 years. I wouldn't have been the nurse I am without having become the mother I am. I wouldn't be working and practicing to my potential had I not gone back for my practitioner degree. I feel like these hard 7 years have only been ones of studying, me the pupil of my mentors at work, my professors at school, my children at home and my neighbors and patients around me and in clinic. I needed these years of being sharpened, growing into the strong, equipped, a surviving woman that I am to now disciple, lead and care for my patients and give back to my community.
