Great Stories
Montana Campus Corps:
College Students Meeting Critical Community Needs
"Real Quick" by Robyn Ostahowski

In one of my clinical sites I worked with an elderly gentleman who was a paraplegic. I was new to the student nursing role and was quite nervous about the tasks that I needed to do. I came into his room several times and as I would remember things that I had forgotten to bring in, time after time I would leave saying "I just need to grab_______ real quick." After a couple times of this, he touched me on the arm and said, "Honey, you don't need to be doing anything 'real quick.' Take your time and enjoy everything you do, because before you know it something could happen and you could lose the use of your legs....Or you could just get old and regret doing everything in your life 'real quick.'"
This was a good lesson for me about demeanor and our interaction with patients and with people in general. It also made me think hard about how fortunate I am to be going into nursing, where I can use what I have been given to help those who either do not have what I have, or have lost it through the events of life.

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