Great Stories
Montana Campus Corps:
College Students Meeting Critical Community Needs
Learning From Doing by Lindsey Lowery

I love everything about being a nursing student, well almost everything. I should exclude the long hours away from family and the stress from assingmnets that are due and tests that I must prepare for, but the actual learning of skills and information is fantastic. Although I have not entirely decided what field I would most like to go into after I graduate, I can safely say that long-term care and mental health are two areas that I am not interested in. Although I have had more experience this year in how to work with such individuals, I still feel that these two areas are not a good fit for me or my personality. With that being said, I was fortuante to have the opportunity to work closely with an individual that was a patient with severe dementia.

Before I started nursing school, I had a view of dementai patients that was not particularily a good one. Now, I know that sounds terrible, but I am happy to say that I stand corrected of my previous viewpoint. Perhaps I had those previous feelings because I did not possess the information that I needed to effectivly work with such individuals. This particular patient truly enlightened me. Through the time and effort that I spent with this client, I learned how to work with people with dementia better. While she appeared hard and unfriendly, she was in all actuality sweet and simply lonely. All it took was a gesture of saying hi to make the patient smile....and when she did it was amazing. This woman that I had previuosly though of as mean had a radiant and charming smile and personality, that I was able to get to know.

This experience has taught me many things, the most impotant of which though is to be patient and to be kind to every person. And while I still don't forsee myself being a long-term care or mental health nurse, the impact that I have made on the community is huge. I am caring for community member's families with kindness and compassion, something which can be felt with something as simple as a smile.


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