Academic and Professional Goals

I believe that the aim of the nursing community worldwide is for its professionals to ensure quality care for all while maintaining their credentials, code of ethics, standards, competencies, and promoting ongoing education. With these goals in mind, I consistently strive towards achieving the highest standards of my own professional development. I offer to you this academic statement of purpose as a partial testament of my pursuit so far.

In 2002, I was the only nursing student selected nationwide for a Summer Intramural Research Training Award Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, Molecular Imaging Branch. During this training fellowship, I worked with a family nurse practitioner in the recruitment and clinical management of both healthy volunteers and inclusion patients for SPECT and PET scan studies looking at the role of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the pathogenesis of with Alzheimers, Parkinsons, and Obssesive Compulsive Disorders. This experience inspired me to pursue research as an academic interest and helped me realize the importance of having nurses represented in healthcare research.

While a student at Washtenaw Community College (WCC), I provided academic support to fellow nursing students as a peer facilitator through University of Michigan School of Nursing’s GENESIS Program. This program seeks to increase the number of students from disadvantaged groups transferring into the UM School of Nursing BSN Program from WCC. Through this experience, I developed an interest in addressing educational disparities within the field of nursing. For example, while a student at Wayne State University, I wrote a paper that challenged the assumption that healthcare would become equalized if racial disparities in health outcomes were to disappear. Rather, holding health outcomes of the white population as a standard for non-white populations to achieve ignores the overall goal of better understanding how to provide healthcare to all persons. At the UM-SON I hope to continue further developing these ideas through research and evidence-based practice and be better able to address health disparities based in marginalized social identities as both a nurse practitioner and nurse educator.

During my tenure at University of Michigan as a clinical nurse I have sought out as many opportunities as possible for professional and personal development. These opportunities include: membership on a clinical practice council committee, election to the role of secretary for the University of Michigan Professional Nurses Council, serving as a preceptor for new staff and new graduate nurses, and presenting original literature review research at the first ever University of Michigan Emergency Nurses Conference. This aforementioned conference presentation was well-attended and aimed to raise awareness of the prevalence, etiologies, common complaints, and co-morbidities associated with homelessness. Importantly, the presentation included a facilitated audience discussion to identify stereotypes and biases that may affect emergency nurses’ care of homeless patients. As a master’s student in the School of Nursing, I am seeking out avenues to further develop my skills as nursing researcher via collaborative, interdisciplinary research. I have already begun to seek out research partnerships with individuals in the UM Psychology Department, The Program on Intergroup Relations, and Global Scholars Program.