The greatest strength of my application to your especially distinguished Masters Program in Nursing at the University of XXXX is undoubtedly the fact that I am not only a nurse, but that I am also fully bilingual and bicultural. I am a Mexican woman who is most fully dedicated to addressing the nursing needs of the underserved. I have deep roots and broad connections in my local, mostly Latino, community here in Michigan and I have even served as a translator for doctors visits and hospital stays for people in my neighborhood.
I am happily married with a 12-year-old boy who is increasingly becoming an independent adolescent, needing his mother less and less. Thus, I now feel strongly that I am at the optimal point in my life to give my all to nursing school and excel. I have worked very hard so far to arrive where I am, balancing family and professional responsibilities. In 2002 I became a Medical Assistant, and continued to study nursing part time, earning my Associates in 2009. My first position as a nurse was in a Medical ICU; then I transferred to another hospital where I have been working in a general telemetry unit for the last 2.5 years. I just recently finished my BSN, May of 2014.
I was born in Monterrey, Mexico and moved to Southern California when I was 18 years old. I have been going to school my entire life. After getting married, we lived in three states, first California, then Arizona, and now we have made our home in Michigan. I am pleased that I earned a degree in each of these three states and I am confident that everything that I have learned so far will help empower me to excel in nursing at the University of Michigan. Since I am now 36 years old, I have had a lot of practice in English and I now speak English very well, often even dreaming in English.
I look forward to becoming increasingly engaged with my Spanish-speaking community, helping to better educate our members about the special challenges that we face as Latinos fighting diabetes and other chronic diseases. I seek to address the ways in which Latino cultures often serve to perpetuate poor lifestyle choices, particularly in our diets, which need to be addressed, particularly with respect to childhood obesity. I feel strongly that I have the passion, commitment, and perseverance that it takes to excel as a Family Nurse Practitioner and be of great service to my community, especially because I am so very passionate about helping people in need. I hope to learn a great deal in your program at the U of M and I particularly look forward to studying the intersections between nursing, on the one hand, and chronic diseases such as diabetes, HIV, and cancer, especially in communities of low socioeconomic status, questions of diversity and justice in healthcare.
I seek to be a good role model for the Latino community as a health care professional. Many of the factors that work against Latinos in terms of health education have to do with the fact that a large proportion, especially among more recent arrivals, tend to work in minimum wage jobs, particularly fast food. Many even had better opportunities back in their home countries. Furthermore, Latinos tend to have big families that often result in economic strains, with parents sometimes having to work up to three jobs to make ends meet, and their children suffer. These children end up at home, eating the most unhealthy/cheap fast food watching TV or playing video games.
As an FNP, I will focus on the children for a variety of reasons, including the fact that many more recent Latino immigrants do not speak English and rely on their children as translators. Here in Michigan the Latino community is concentrated in small pockets such as Washtenaw County where I reside. Many if not most are undocumented which correlates very heavily with underuse of health care services. Many of the children of lack Medicaid or other State-funded healthcare services. Often, prenatal care is totally absent because these people simply do not understand the healthcare system.
