2011 Robert Jordan Memorial Scholarship Recipient Announced!

I spent the majority of my teenage years immersed in the rich and engrossing world which Robert Jordan has created through his Wheel of Time series. I have modeled my person after a combination of several of his characters, all of who were, in my own personal opinion, “servants of all.” I have always admired especially though, Nyneave’s insistence that “anything short of death should be able to be [h]ealed,” which is why I have chosen to go down the path of medicine.

I am currently going to school to apply to the Nursing program at Utah Valley University so that I might be able to serve my fellow man. I am also a Corpsman in the United States Navy Reserves. I am no stranger to service. I honestly take great joy in helping those around me and in giving to my community. I recently performed my clinicals for a certified nurse’s assistant (CNA) class that I’m taking at a long term care center, and I cannot express how much I loved being able to help those elderly citizens and to watch their expressions as someone showed them a simple kindness. It was such a gratifying experience.

It amazes me that so many people take the job of a nurse simply for the money. I am not one of those people. I want to be a nurse not for the paycheck, but rather for the opportunity I will have to lessen the pain of the patients I will be working with. It is for this reason that I plan on getting a specialization as a nurse anesthetist, meaning I will assist in procedures where the patient will be needing anesthesia or intravenous pain killers, like during labor or for different surgeries. If I were truly in it for the money, without a care for the people, I would become a doctor because, as most people in the medical field know, it really is the nurses that get the most hands on time with a patient. It is the nurses that administer the medicines and the emotional aspect of healing.

I may not have been able to grow up and be an Aes Sedai or an Ash’a’man since I am unable to wield the One Power, but I can become a modern day healer. I cannot think of a better or more noble a vocation than that of a nurse. It is a greatly underappreciated profession, the people in it performing duties that not only heal the body, but also serve the soul. Like Nyneave, I too want to help those around me, and by going into this field of work, I will fulfill both my desire and the need at hand. A nurse is truly a Servant of All.