Heather Caldwell's 2015 Pinning Ceremony Speech
Heather Caldwell, from Drift, KY, received her BSN and gave the 2015 Pinning Ceremony Speech at the UK Singletary Center on Friday, May 8. Below is her speech, which honors the work accomplished, the friends made and the dreams that were accomplished:
Ladies and gentlemen, friends and family, welcome to the University of Kentucky College of Nursing 2015 Pinning Ceremony. This moment is what all of us have looked forward to for the last four years. This is a time to recognize these students for their hard work, long nights, busy days, and intense studying. Many of you in the audience have been by our sides through each exam and post clinical day. Honestly you are most likely just as happy to see this day as we are. For those who do not know or would like a retelling of this great tale, I’d be happy to provide a recap.
Four years ago we stepped onto this campus, bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to become something greater. Some of us knew we wanted to be nurses, maybe we did not, maybe we had already received one degree and wanted a new adventure. Either way, we came here looking make our contribution to the world and eventually we decided to be nurses. Little did we know, over the next few semesters we would question that decision over and over again.
After stressing to get that coveted 3.7 GPA while completing our prerequisites, we were accepted into the University of Kentucky’s College of Nursing. Congratulations! And Welcome to one of the most grueling bachelorette programs. Together we awkwardly learned how to walk into a patient’s room and look like we had any idea what we were doing. Then we started to get comfortable with the five rights of medication administration, and maintaining sterility. Somehow we survived the dreaded examinations from professors like Jennifer Cowley or Stephanie Fugate, and we survived equally intense cross examination from our classmates David and Damien.
Despite all the difficulties and what felt like failures, we blossomed into slightly less awkward nurses who knew a little bit more about what we were doing when we walked into a patient’s room. We made lifelong friendships and lived in our College of Nursing bubble that other college students wouldn’t understand. We worked together to solve case studies, and challenged one another’s thinking to do better on tests. We asked Corinna to formulate that question the professor may ask, or maybe we would group together in the nursing lounge for late night study sessions.
Either way, we began to rise to the occasion. With every success we remembered why we decided to be a nurse in the first place. After long clinical days, we occasionally came home with a smile because we made someone feel better, we held someone’s hand while they cried, or we discharged them after weeks in the hospital. On those days, WE were nurses.
Now the real purpose of this speech is to remember where we have been, so we can be even more excited about the where we plan to go. Now it’s time to take everything we have learned and put it to the test! It’s time to remember sedation vacations, sterile technique, and therapeutic communication so that when we leave here today…we can pass the NCLEX exam. But after that, we will be caring for patients and will get our “big kid” jobs.
So, thank you classmates for giving me a great four year adventure with some of the coolest people I know. And on behalf of the May 2015 graduating class, thank you friends and family for dealing with our craziness, thank you professors for dealing with our craziness, and thank you to everyone at the College of Nursing for giving us an opportunity to go crazy; for we are as thankful for your patience as our patients will be thankful for us.
