August 10, 2020 – “I went to New York, I did six weeks as a registered nurse stationed on a tele-cardiac COVID floor where all of our patients were COVID-positive. I felt like I needed to make a bigger impact and help where it was needed because that’s what we do as health care providers.
New nurses coming in from the different schools, you can tell there’s a huge knowledge base difference. I learned more coming from Santa Fe College than what most do going to school and doing clinicals elsewhere. That gave me a head start.
It takes a special person to be a teacher, a special person to be a firefighter, a special person to be a doctor, a nurse. In the medical field, I think it takes a special person to understand that at times you’re going to risk your life to help others. I feel that if I wear my proper PPE I’m going to be fine. If I do the proper handwashing I’m going to be fine. As long as you go back to your foundation, to the bare basics of infection control and what you learned in the beginning of nursing school, you’re going to be okay.
I don’t live in fear because if it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go. But I live to make a difference. So going to New York was because they needed help. And that’s what drives us in the nursing profession.
We’re learning more each day about how to treat it and what the best precautions are for it. We don’t need to live in fear of it. If we continue to fear it versus trying to learn from it, then it’s going to hold us back. Just wear your mask, that’s all you’ve got to do. As simple of an inconvenience as it is to some people, it can help. COVID would die down quickly if everyone just wore a mask.”
– Leeanne Odum, SF B.S.N, 2015