Miss Colorado, the 22-year-old Kelley Johnson, made a very resplendent move in the recent preliminary night of Miss America Pageant 2016 in Atlantic City on September 09, 2015.
She replaced a sequined gown and conventional meretricious costumes with a regular scrub suit. She is a recent graduate of Grand View University with a degree Bachelor of Science in Nursing.“No Joe I can’t, I’m just a Nurse”
She finished her degree with flying colors by graduating as the class valedictorian and currently a registered nurse. Her talent is simply a monologue but encapsulated with a profound story of a nurse and patient relationship. In her soliloquy, she explained a personal experience which made her realized why she became a nurse in the first place.
In Miss Colorado’s introduction, she articulated, “Every nurse has a patient that reminds them of why they became a nurse in the first place, mine was Joe. Joe was in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s, he had moments with and moment without his memory, but the hardest part of the aging condition for Joe is his night terrors.” As she further made her speech, she explained her limitations as a nurse, such as altering the patient’s treatments or medications, because she is simply a nurse.
Every time Joe would ask her to make such modifications she would reply, “No Joe, I can’t, I’m just a nurse”. However, although nurses are constraint to make such actions, they still entail skills that help patients feel better, it’s the skill of empowering people by their own potentials. Miss Colorado continues by telling an instance in one of her shifts with Joe, in which she found him crying. She comforted him by her words and said, “Joe, I know that this is hard, but you are not defined by this disease. You are not just Alzheimer’s, you’re still Joe.” These words bring a sense of empowerment to the patient, but to her surprise, Joe looks back at her and gave her a better cognizance of her nursing life. Joe said, “Nurse Kelley, and then the same goes to you. Although you say it all the time, you are not just a nurse. You are my nurse, and you have changed my life because you’ve cared about me”. This response hits Miss Colorado and enlightened her that she is more than just a nurse, she is a lifesaver.
Miss Colorado’s monologue brings people beyond the conformist idea of a nurse. She demarcated an example of unscripted tasks that nurses provide in bedside care which is often more powerful than medications and medical procedures. Her experience is merely one tangible proof that the relationship built by nurses to their patients is not only for the mere sake of relieving them from their condition, but it’s teamwork that defines each other’s value.
