Conforming the Dream of Becoming a Nurse into Reality

Through experiences, the thought of becoming a nurse has become a dream for me and it is time to make this dream a reality! For the past five years, working as a Scuba Diving Instructor has been an absolute life experience, showing me different parts of the world as well as learning different skills, essentially learning who I am and what I want to become. Due to diving, I have moved and worked in a range of places including Miami, Florida Keys, rustic locations within Mexico, and Grand Cayman, where I currently reside and call home. Although working as a Scuba Diving Instructor seems like a dream job, throughout my time I realized it is time to place this job as a hobby, due to the lack of pay or health insurance. Luckily, through these experiences it has opened my eyes into the love of teaching Emergency First Responder Courses, has motivated me to take nursing classes, as well as given me experience with using my first aid skills in real life events. Due to these experiences I have gained more knowledge and motivation that this is the profession I want to be in and will do everything possible to achieve it!

            While working as a Scuba Diving Instructor it is required to also be an Emergency First Responder (EFR) Instructor as well. This course teaches basic first aid to recreational divers as well as future professionals in diving but was an essential course while working in a very remote location outside of Tulum, Mexico. This rustic location, without electricity, running water, or any normal amenities was a home to about 10 staff members and up to 24 volunteers, where we would scuba dive pristine dive locations monitoring the health of the coral reef. It was perfect for discovering how a coral reef should be without the runoff and pollution of heavily populated areas, but because of it’s location (between 1-2 hours depending on the condition of the one pot-holed filled dirt road) it was mandatory for everyone to have basic first aid training. As one of the head instructors, I taught EFR to volunteers every month, and truly gained a love for teaching, as well as a reputation for creating very lifelike scenarios for the volunteers to act on. My gain for knowledge and interest in EFR created a spark within me that was excited to go ahead and pursue nursing as a profession.

            After my time in Mexico, I was not quite finished with my Scuba Diving career, moving to Grand Cayman. Yet again, I continued teaching EFR courses with Cayman Turtle Divers, which continued my intent to become a nurse. I started taking online classes towards a nursing degree, trying to make my workload lighter so I could continue to work full-time and continue my education. It was not until my Ethics in Healthcare class, where I had to interview a person on island (will stay anonymous) about the hospital’s rules with regard to dealing with ethical issues at the hospital. He then led me to the idea of continuing my dream in nursing is possible through University College of the Cayman Islands. This was excellent news for me because Grand Cayman has been the first place through my travels that I have truly felt as a home, and would like to do everything in my power to stay on the island and continue to provide that CaymanKind experience.

            Besides teaching basic first aid, and taking online classes towards my nursing degree, I have also had to deal with some unfortunate events where I have had to put my training to use. Although scuba diving is an incredibly fun recreational sport, we as professionals do end up having to deal with some very unfortunate events, ranging from injuries, near drowning incidents, or sometimes worse. During my diving career, I have had to help bandage people who later on needed stitches, I have had to deliver oxygen and monitor divers with potential decompression illness, as well as helping provide CPR to an unresponsive nonbreathing diver. Although these situations are unfortunate, after reflection I realized that I thoroughly enjoy trying to help people in these positions, pushing my desire to become a nurse even stronger.

            In Fall 2019 I initiated this dream of mine to become a nurse, enrolling in University College of the Cayman Islands 4 year nursing program. This experience has been everything I wanted and more, not only learning about nursing but also gaining experience culturally about this island that I would love to call home. I had plans to continue working in Watersports while enrolling in the nursing program, but unfortunately due to COVID-19 tourism has come to a complete halt in Grand Cayman. Although this virus is a major setback, I am using it as more motivation to try everything possible to continue my dream of gaining a nursing career. Let’s face it, this virus has proven the nursing shortage worldwide and I would love to add to the dedicated nurses in Grand Cayman to continue to better the health of our community.