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Candy striper. CNA. LPN. RN. That's the journey of Vernetta
Parsons from 14-year-old hospital volunteer through
the welfare system to charge nurse on the med/surg floor
of Bannock Regional Medical Center in Pocatello, Idaho.
"A lot of people are surprised when they find
out I was on welfare. I'm not ashamed of it," Parsons
said. "But I didn't like it. I hated food stamps
every month for six years."
Still, she considers herself lucky on two counts: She
had the good counsel of a clergyman who persuaded her
in 1990 that welfare was the best way for a newly divorced
mother of three children to go to school and eventually
provide for them. And she was able to make the system
work.
At 43, Parsons is marking her sixth year as an RN,
and each has been a step away from the days in Colorado
Springs, Colo., when low-income housing, with rent of
about $50 a month, was a blessing. "I was a single
mom on welfare and it didn't look very good," Parsons
said. "I was lucky enough to get into some programs
for single moms that paid for child care."
A now-defunct federal program paid for CNA training,
which led to part-time housekeeping with a home health
agency. Pell grants covered prerequisites for a BSN
degree when, in 1994, Parsons was admitted into the
associate degree nursing program at Pikes Peak Community
College. With an additional summer course, the program
led to an LPN license in her final year of school, a
position in a nursing home and RN credentials after
graduation.
She chose to settle in Idaho for its relatively low
cost of living and to be near her aging parents.
In a hospital such as Bannock Regional Medical Center,
with 20 beds on the med/surg floor and fewer than 150
total, nurses tend to float a lot, Parsons said. She
also has worked in ICU, but said she intends to remain
on the med/surg night shift for the foreseeable future
because she still has a lot to learn.
"Last year, the idea of charging on a hospital
floor scared the daylights out of me and it still does
a little bit," Parsons said. "But I've done
it and I've done OK. I really admire the nurses that
have been around for a while, even the LPNs." Just
as graduate nurses go to her when she is supervisor,
she said she often goes to long-time LPNs for advice.
"It doesn't matter what their license is."
Eventually, though, Parson said she'd like a role in
long-term care reform. "Don't get me wrong, nursing
homes have improved greatly since the '70s, but they
can still use some more. I would like to have something
to do with the better treatment of residents. I've seen
too many employees who are there just for the paycheck."
Parsons said her talent, and perhaps the reason she
followed up on her first experience as a candy striper
to be a nurse, seems to be an ability to appease difficult
or demanding people. That has ranged from reviewing
a meds sheet with a grumpy relative who didn't like
that a loved one in a nursing home was receiving generic
medication, to caring for a hospitalized psychiatrist
who liked to have a glass of milk warmed in the middle
of the night.
Additionally, she said, at Bannock Regional, "We
have the typical amount of alcoholics and drug abusers
and confused people. If you treat them with respect,
they really mellow out."
Parsons said her last and biggest struggle to overcome
her welfare past is internal, a matter of self-esteem
and forever banishing the thought that "I'm not
that type of person."
Despite professional and personal success (she recently
purchased her first home), "I need people to say,
'Hey, good job,' " Parsons said.
Recognition, though, is something every RN appreciates.
"It's hard when you see a letter from a family
member or a gift to everybody and they'll mention the
nurses who took care of them," Parsons said. "And
you were one of them but they didn't mention you because
you worked nights. Even though you shouldn't need that,
that's really kind of tough."
Contact
Phil McPeck at getpjm@aol.com.
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