Ana A. Logan

My previous career experience was as a funeral director and embalmer for about five years. Being a funeral director was rewarding but it was not fulfilling enough for me. I decided to pursue a second career in nursing because it includes all of life’s facets, not just the end. Nursing is a rewarding career that will allow me to touch the lives many different people while witnessing and celebrating their progression. For example the birth of a newborn baby, the recovery from an illness, rehabilitation, and disaster relief are all events that I will be able to experience as a nurse and see the positive impacts of my labor.  
 

Growing up in a poor neighborhood in Jamaica, I have seen many people die from illnesses and even from nosocomial infections due to the lack of timely care which ended in the result of death. It is heartbreaking to see the rich get the proper healthcare and the poor suffer based on economic status. If poor people get sick, it is almost a death sentence for them in third world countries and even in some parts of the United States. As a future nurse, I know that I can have an impact on lowering the rates of these hospital acquired infections by teaching healthcare workers the proper hygiene, especially hand hygiene and disease transmission precautions.
 

Many low income countries like Jamaica do not have the proper resources, or the education systems to properly train healthcare workers. In underserved communities of the United States, healthcare is not easily accessible, and if it is, patients are treated with lower levels of care based on their economic status. For many years I could not afford healthcare and had to receive healthcare from government clinics, therefore, I firsthand want to tackle the inferior treatment that is provided at these facilities.  After completing my nursing degree, I would like to approach healthcare workers and make them knowledge on the different ways of lowering hospital acquired infection rates and treating patients with a higher level of overall care. 

Receiving the Robert Wood Johnson NCIN scholarship is a tremendous honor that will facilitate my educational and future career goals. This scholarship award applies more motivation to excel academically and professionally, knowing that there is a foundation, along with the mentors who believe in me to make such as great contribution to not only my community but to the world. The RWJF has only been a great experience and the scholarship has reinforced that the doors of the nursing career had opened up for me, and nursing is the way of life I should choose and follow.