Never give up on your dreams and goals

Hello, my name is Karishma and I am a mom to three beautiful children. I was a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) for the past nine years prior to going back to school to pursue my dream of being a Registered Nurse. Through these nine years working as an LPN I have gained work experience in long-term care (LTC), Acute medicine, ambulatory care, medical path unit, outpatient services, and home health. My first job as an LPN started in LTC. This experience really made me inquisitive about the elderly population, as well as where I wanted to go as an LPN. After working in LTC for many months I decided it was time for another adventure to help me grow as a nurse; therefore, I decided to join the team in the acute medicine unit at Burnaby hospital. This unit gave me the opportunity to utilize the clinical skills and knowledge that I had learned during nursing school in practice.

This also exposed me to many different health comorbidities, which gave me a better understanding of my scope of practice and critical thinking skills as I grew into my role as an LPN.  In the last six years, I have been mostly working in community nursing.  This includes working from the hospital to help the community in an outpatient clinic. This clinic includes specialized wound care and intravenous therapy. When I started this position, I realized that if I wanted to grow in my career, I would need to upgrade my nursing role to a Registered Nurse (RN). As an LPN there are not many opportunities to secure a position. I struggled to find a permanent position. It was then that I really needed to change my role and that is when I found Work BC.

 As this program would have been challenging to complete if I had to work full-time and go to school full-time, Work BC was able to assist me with the financial element of attending school. WorkBC not only supported me with the tuition fee, books, and supplies needed to be successful in my studies, but the biggest support was the child care and living support once my EI ran out. I was supported with that throughout my training. The financial support gave me peace of mind to concentrate on my studies and fulfill my goal to become a Registered Nurse.

I am almost finished with my program. In order to start working as a registered nurse, I would need to pass the NCLEX exam first. With this being said I now have the chance to pursue my career goal of becoming an RN all due to Work BC; without their support, I'm not sure I could have managed to return to school.

I struggled for many years to secure a permanent position as there are so many LPNs and fewer jobs. I was casual for five years before I secured a position. Once I secured this position, I was bumped numerous times out of my position by a nurse who has more seniority than I did. This was a struggle as you don’t see many RNs being bumped or struggling to find a permanent position anywhere.

In the end I would like to add that always look beyond what you see, success comes from within, never let failure stop you from reaching your goals.

Never give up on your dreams and goals.