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Our 35 graduates looked like this: 21 bachelor's degrees, 14 associate degrees Average age of 29, with an age range of 21 to 60 31 females, four males 10 came to nursing as a second career

A muffled voice was on the other end of the phone. Jean, a new nurse, was the "nurse of the day," her first time taking all the medical calls for the public health department.

She thought about what she was told, "Remember: This is public health. We don't have emergencies. You can take a number, hang up, look up the answer and call them back."

The voice on the phone, in a panic, said, "There is blood all over the bathroom. I can't stop the bleeding." It sounded like an older woman who needed emergency care. Jean advised the person as she was trained: Hang up and call 911.

Later, Jean learned that the voice was a male friend of hers. She couldn't believe she didn't recognize him. She realized that because she was in professional mode, she never would have considered that one of her calls could be a family member or a friend.

She said she felt bad afterward, because in her former life she would have rushed over and picked up her friend and driven him to the hospital herself. But, it was the right thing to do, because her friend received the care he needed. He was treated and released from the local hospital.

For Jean, it was one of those moments in her first year as a nurse that marked for her that she actually had become a nurse. She realized she had crossed over to the "other side."

About a year ago Jean, along with 34 other 2002 nursing school graduates from across the country, agreed to take NURSEWEEK along on their journey in their first year as a nurse.

Many significant stops were made along the way: finals, graduation, boards, interviews and a lot of decision-making about what that first job would be. Our new grads, though, had options.

In journal-like fashion, they sent "dispatches" from the field-from the floors of hospitals, emergency departments and public health offices.

And, like Jean's pivotal moment, many of the nurses wrote about the moments when they had "the feeling" that they had become a nurse. For some, it was experiencing a patient's death for the first time or committing a medical error, but all had one thing in common: The experiences they had-the good and the bad-brought them more confidence that their decision to be a nurse was the right one.

This last installment in our Nursing Odyssey series offers some highlights of what the new grads told NURSEWEEK during their first year.

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