Prepared by Mary Padron

For the UTHSC MSN CNL Accelerated Program


 

On a professional level, I chose to apply to the UTHSC MSN CNL program because it allows me to blend my past academic success and professional experience with my present goal to become a licensed registered nurse. I believe your accelerated master’s program will give a mature student, such as myself, a better chance of succeeding in the healthcare industry. From an emotional level, becoming a licensed RN with clinical leadership skills will allow me to perform a dual purpose: help others in complex situations and help improve nursing practice in an “increasingly complex healthcare environment.” Both of these outcomes appeal to my higher sense of purpose as I change my professional focus from marketing/sales to service through healthcare.

My previous success at the University of Memphis (graduated summa cum laude) and my current success at Southwest as I pursue my A & P/Microbiology/Statistics pre-requisites, show I have the discipline and study skills to help me become successful in your program. Plus, my professional experience in advertising, marketing, sales, and public relations will have crossover benefits in my becoming an effective CNL. Advertising and marketing use performance models of needs assessment, program creation, execution/implementation, and program outputs/results, just as a CNL will need to evaluate clinical performance at the microsystem level. Plus, a CNL will need excellent communication skills and both my academic and professional experience have prepared me for those tasks. Also, my previous career demanded keeping current with computers and software, and I believe my technology prowess will come into play as the healthcare industry becomes more dependent on technology and software to record and monitor patient care.

I have also applied to the program because I have read from numerous sources that more nurses will be needed because of the aging U. S. population, the severity and frequency of natural disasters, pandemic threats, and also because of the number of retiring nurses. It is rewarding to feel like I could be part of a solution to a growing healthcare challenge. It makes me happy to think that I could bring hope, health, and well-being to those who are ill.  It makes me feel purposeful that I could help make the systems for providing healthcare more effective than ever.

Just as healthcare is ever changing and requires reinvention as new technologies, systems and cures are discovered, I am reinventing my professional life from a career in sales and marketing to a career that centers on service through healthcare. This change will allow me to financially take care of myself in the new economy while taking care of others. I have been very negatively impacted by the current economy, and I want to prepare myself for the future by learning new skills that are always in demand in the marketplace. When I discovered UT’s new MSN CNL accelerated program, I said to myself, “Perfect.” My family, including my sister, Carol Duffer, who is a UTHSC alum in medical technology, has encouraged me to pursue a medical career at UT.

I am very interested in pediatrics and would eventually like to work with children at Le Bonheur or St. Judes’s Children Research Hospital. However, I am also interested in research and education and would like to weave these two aspects of nursing into my nursing career mix after I have been in a clinical or hospital setting for ten years.

My mantra or guiding statement as I begin my new nursing path is “Quality care

. . .positive outcomes.”

--Mary Padron

901-359-4425

email: padron_mary@yahoo.com

or mary@marypadron.com