How will you contribute to the mission of the Nurse Corps SP in providing care to underserved communities, and how does this align with your commitment to pursue a career in nursing?”

Having worked in an environment engulfed with less fortunate people has exposed me to a lot of things. I have mingled with people of all kinds, either in form of thinking, and financial status. I understand what lack means, and the kind of achievements that money can afford someone to buy. I have experienced too, a shortage that the underserved communities have. As I reflect of my past experiences, I am reminded of the people I have helped, either financially, mentally or physically, giving me a clear picture of how human beings should live-always being there to help those in need. Considering this fact, I can affirm that my curiosity to serve the underprivileged did not start at my adult age. It began way at my younger stages, and this attitude grew as the time progressed. I am in a position where the problems of my neighbor concerns me, and I do all what I can to extract them from the suffering. Along the interaction with the people in my community, I realized that most of the problems people face starts from their minds (Brown & Keith,2003). The way people think they are definitely shapes their destiny.  My pursuit in nursing, specifically Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner will bridge the gap between the underserved population and healthcare. My goal as a nurse will be to advocate for the plight of the patients with mental problems, manage issues related to mental health and substance abuse, to improve the lives of the victims.

I believe that I am of great contribution to the DNP program, as my background is in Psychology and Nursing.  The specialization exposed me to a plethora of subjects, that taught me how to deal with mental related issues, and how to manage such patients while respecting their rights. The most important thing that I learned during my undergraduate study was that patients with mental problems are different from those suffering from other conditions. The latter requires close monitoring, and the nurse serving them has to segment personalized approach of dealing with them (Nasirin, 2020). This means that apart from the content learned in the class, nurses dealing with mental patients are required to integrate other approaches of handling those patients, and interpersonal skills plays large in such situations. In the same vein, I learned how to assess the physical traits of the patients, and combine them with the test results to provide accurate judgement of the kind of mental problem a patient is suffering from. With his academic background, I believe that I will be of help to diverse population of patients, ranging from children to adults, who experience various psychiatric and mental disorders.

Apart from the skills gained through completing the undergraduate program, I have had an opportunity of serving the community as a psychiatric registered nurse in the community psychiatric emergency center. Working in this role has enabled me to comprehend the kinds of challenges mental patients undergo through. One of the immediate observation was that they are neglected and sidelined by the community (Spoorthy et al.,2020), due to the myth that they are bewitched. There is little information out there about the mental health, which makes people hold to fallacies. Some of my responsibilities while serving here were providing nursing care for the patients, consulting with psychiatrists to design appropriate treatment plan, documenting patient’s information among others. I have learned to deal with complex patients, and advanced my leadership and management skills, which I hope to apply in the next stage of my career development. I will build on these traits to be able to serve patients with mental issues better, an area that most fear. I hope that the knowledge that I will gain from the DNP program would enable me to provide holistic care and conduct psychiatric assessments to create treatment plan that include a variety of therapeutic modalities.

After gaining the necessary training through the DNP—Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, I will be able to take care of the patients’ social and physical needs. In order to contribute to the mission of the program, I want to advocate for the medical practitioners to work in impoverished communities. Recent studies have shown that most of the students in the medical school have not been exposed to community health (Stewart et al.,2020). A large proportion are of the assertion that health care is only needed in the hospitals, a common reason why strides to improve community health has failed. Notwisthanding, there is a high number of cases in the communities suffering in silence, and it is the high time that health focus shifts towards reaching out to the people in the villages. Through the volunteer programs, I want to educate the future health care providers on the need to appreciate community health, as way of administering health services to the underserved communities. By doing so, I will have contributed to the mission of Nurse Corps SP, of achieving health equity.

In the same vein, I have a deep conviction that what lacks in our communities is the passion and commitment of the health care providers to reach to the underserved communities. Over the years, I have worked with this segment of population whose right to quality and affordable healthcare is trodden upon. The studies have shown that the cost of medication is high, which contributes to inequality of health care access (Kogut,2020). The wealthy are able to access high quality healthcare services, as opposed to the poor in the villages. The shortage of healthcare providers is the major contribution to the inequality in health services, and by completing the DNP- Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, I want to devote my service to the severely mentally ill population. I will leverage on my strengths- compassionate, thoughtful, and empathetic, to be able to address the needs of this population. Therefore, my contribution begins by furthering education, where I will be prepared to conduct psychological assessment, manage medications, and work with diverse patients with varied mental problems such as psychosis, depression, bipolar disorder, dementia, and schizophrenia.

My commitment is to continue in community mental health field as psychiatric nurse practitioner. The fulfilment that comes with this kind of work is more than monetary rewards, and my choice to remain within this line of profession is informed from my past experience. I have seen lives being transformed, and once neglected individuals becoming productive and of value to the community. To me, this is a calling that I have purposed to remain in for the entire of my life. I am certain that the program will provide me with a skill-set that will enable me to take my career forward.