The greatest strength of my application to your distinguished master's program for the MS in Nursing at the University of XXXX is that I am not only a nurse but 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 Latino community in Michigan. I have served as a translator for doctors' visits, and hospital stays for people in my neighborhood.
I am happily married to a 12-year-old boy who is increasingly becoming an independent adolescent, needing his mother less and less. I am at the optimal point in life to give my all to nursing school and excel. I have worked hard to get where I am, balancing family and professional responsibilities. In 2002 I became a Medical Assistant and continued to study nursing part-time, earning my Associate's in 2009. My first position as a nurse was in a Medical ICU; then, I transferred to another hospital, where I worked in a general telemetry unit for the last 2.5 years. I just recently finished my BSN in May of 2014.
I was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and moved to Southern California when I was eighteen. I have been going to school my entire life. After getting married, we lived in three states, California, then Arizona, and now we have made our home in Michigan. I am pleased that I earned a degree in these three states, and I am confident that everything I have learned so far will help empower me to excel in nursing at the University of Michigan. Now thirty-six, I have had a lot of practice in English, and I now speak English 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 unique challenges of Latinos fighting diabetes and other chronic diseases. I seek to address how Latino cultures often perpetuate poor lifestyle choices, particularly in our diets, especially regarding childhood obesity. I have the passion, commitment, and perseverance to excel as a Family Nurse Practitioner and be of service to my community, mainly because I am extremely passionate about helping people in need. I hope to learn a great deal in your program at the U of X. I look forward to studying the intersections between nursing and chronic diseases such as diabetes, HIV, and cancer, especially in communities of low socioeconomic status.
As a healthcare professional, I seek to be a good role model for the Latino community. Many factors against Latinos concerning health education have to do with the fact that many, especially more recent arrivals, tend to work in fast food and other minimum-wage jobs. Furthermore, Latinos tend to have large families, often resulting in economic strain. Parents sometimes work up to three jobs to make ends meet, and their children suffer. These children end up at home, eating the unhealthiest fast food watching TV, or playing video games.
As an FNP, I will focus on the children for several reasons, mainly because 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 the underuse of healthcare services. Many of the children lack Medicaid or other State-funded healthcare services. Often, prenatal care is absent because these people do not understand the healthcare system.