SHU Alum Puts ‘Nursing with Heart’ into Practice
Medical mission trip to Jamaica is pivotal to student’s nursing education
Patients in the surgical intensive care unit at Medstar Georgetown University Hospital (MGUH) in Washington, D.C., are lucky to have Sacred Heart alum Yaritza Grant ’17 caring for them. “I choose to do my nursing care the way I would care for my family members,” Grant explains. “That could mean something as simple as brushing out and braiding a patient’s hair. Sacred Heart’s whole concentration is ‘nursing with heart.’ It shaped how I lead my nursing practice.”
One of Grant’s professors encouraged her to apply for an opening in the operating room at MGUH. “Sometimes, others can see in us what we can’t quite see in ourselves,” says Grant, who graduated in May 2017, passed her NCLEX (licensure exam) a month later and began her life in Washington, D.C., as an operating room nurse that July. “I had a job before I had my degree in my hand,” she says.
Grant pulled off quite a coup by obtaining a job in an operating room straight out of nursing school: by the age of 24, she was one of the youngest charge nurses in operating room (OR). “People who work in operating rooms never leave,” Grant observes. Finding an opening is difficult enough, but landing that opening right out of college is monumental.
Grant recalls feeling as though something was missing during her orientation at the hospital: “It’s not about what you do; it’s about how you make people feel,” she says, so she became nurse residency program facilitator.
“I encourage all new nursing graduates to find a hospital that offers a nurse fellowship or a nurse residency program,” says Grant.
One of her goals as residency facilitator was to let new nurses know that their feelings are valid, and they easily can feel overwhelmed. “I remember when I first started, I would call my mom, who is also a nurse, crying, ‘How am I supposed to remember all of these [surgical] instruments? Me? I’m still learning! Who thought this was a good idea? I’m still figuring out how to cook dinner for myself!’”
As much as Grant loved the operating room, she moved to surgical and transplant intensive care unit in 2020. One year after her orientation for her new position, she’s a preceptor and a charge nurse in her unit. She has been taking classes to become an even greater resource. “I’m learning ultrasound guided IV insertion; I do continuous veno-venous hemofiltration (a 24-hour dialysis) … it’s made me a better nurse. I can take care of the patient during the surgery by being a scrub or circulating nurse; and again afterward if they are critically ill. For instance, the other day, I got to take care of someone who received a new liver, I love it.”
Of course, there are some patients who are downright rude and mean to nurses, but Grant looks beyond the attitude to the reason. “There’s something going on with them; they’re scared. I tell them, ‘Let’s talk through it.” I had one person who was downright mean to me. We figured out that he wasn’t getting adequate pain control, and he was upset about having to get another surgery. We worked through it.”
Paramount experience in Jamaica
Grant says one of her paramount experiences while studying in the Dr. Susan L. Davis, R.N., & Richard J. Henley College of Nursing was using real-life nursing skills during her medical mission trip to Jamaica. “We were doing makeshift clinics in offices and in huts. I remember the first day, none of us drank enough water or brought enough snacks.
“We bring our own medicine, eyeglasses, everything,” she reports. “People are waiting for us to give them their medicine because they know we’re coming.”
Nursing students from undergraduates to doctoral level attend the Jamaica medical mission trip. “One of the best things about these trips outside the United States is that you aren’t worried about endless charting or insurance issues; you get to just provide care where it’s needed. That’s at the heart of why we get into nursing. We’re compassionate people. We love to help people,” Grant says.
Even Grant’s experience as a resident assistant at SHU has worked its way into her nursing practice. “Being an RA helped me develop the interpersonal skills that I use every day,” she maintains. Grant was also a member of La Hispanidad, the dance ensemble, Student Nurses Association, student ambassadors and the multicultural council.
Sacred Heart was an easy choice for Grant because of the option to study abroad and to go on a medical mission trip, as well as its NCLEX pass rate that’s higher than the national average and nursing students’ ability to graduate in four years. “SHU was checking all my boxes; going anywhere else would have been ludicrous.”
“If you’re excited about lifelong learning, you’re a nerd, and if you think science is cool and you think the human body is cool, come on over to nursing,” Grant advises.
Pictured: Medical mission trip to Jamaica; Yaritza, center, with her fellow Pioneer nursing students