by Kelly Beischel PhD, RN, CNE

I spent most of my 20 years of direct nursing practice caring for the most vulnerable of patients – from neonates in neonatal intensive care to children in cardiac intensive care to children in the emergency department.

I’ve spent the last 8 years in the hardest job I’ve had yet – teaching. But, I love it. I view each day as an opportunity to effect change – change in a student’s thinking, change in how I teach, and ultimately, change in patient outcomes.

I infuse my teaching with the passion I have for nursing hoping that my students may too fall in love with this honored profession. While I miss being in the middle of patient care I am driven by the wider influence I have on patient outcomes by being an effective teacher.

One day I calculated the number of patients I might affect by my teaching and here is what I found:

Let’s say that I have positively influenced the patient care delivery of 10 of  the 2013 graduating seniors who then become nurses and in turn each of these 10 nurses care for 10 patients over a week’s time.

In a year’s time I will have positively influenced the delivery of care to 5,000 patients-this year alone. If these 10 nurses have a 30 year career this number extrapolates to 150,000 patients and if I positively influence 10 graduating nurses each year for 20 years in my career as a faculty member I will have positively influenced the care of approximately 3 million patients.

This is my WHY!

This is what gets me out of bed each morning. When I am tired or frustrated, I focus on my WHY – on my service to the world and once again I feel the driving force that infuses my teaching and my service to students.

What is your WHY?

I’d love to know your why! Respond below.