Influential Woman · Nursing
Brooke Parish
ER Trauma Nurse, --
Dallas, TX
Her Story
About Brooke
I've been in the nursing field for 3 years as of this month, specializing in ER trauma nursing. My journey into nursing began with my grandma - when she got really sick, I discovered I had a passion for caring for others. I loved helping her get around the house, with her daily activities, anything she needed help with. When she passed away, I realized I actually have a love for helping others and I really wanted to see how this would help me in the future. I'm originally from Ohio, where I went to nursing school and got my IV certification. During clinicals, I gained a lot of experience and knowledge, and then when I started working in the field, that's where I put a lot of my knowledge into place. I'm a visual person, so learning everything in nursing school and then seeing how we apply it to the actual field really helped me understand the materials. My main expertise is the ER - I did a little background in med-surg but quickly found out that wasn't my expertise and that's not where my passion was. On a regular basis, I care for patients and make sure we can get them back to how they were before they came into the ER, making sure I'm giving proper dosage medications to them, monitoring them and making sure there's no changes in their health while they're in the ER. My most notable approach is going in and treating everyone as if they were my family member - how would I want my family members to be cared for when they go into the hospital? I know everyone who goes into the hospital is under an unfortunate event and most people are scared when they come in, so I make the patient more comfortable and less scared of what's going on. I've moved to Texas about a year ago, and I'm planning to put myself through school again to become a nurse practitioner. Caring for kids is what I've found my passion to be, and ever since I started caring for my grandma, I've always wanted to specialize in pediatrics. Eventually, I want to open up my own pediatric clinic, but before I do that, I definitely want to get the experience and knowledge as a nurse practitioner in that field.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Brooke
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to how I was raised. A lot of how I was raised is how I go out and approach people, and how I go out and approach patients and my coworkers. I was raised to grow up and be humble, be respectful, and just take constructive criticism as it is, don't take it to heart, and just be open to any and everything as far as advice being given.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
My nursing instructor told me, with nursing, go for it. Go for any opportunities that come to you. And she also said, because I am a shy person at heart, to just go for it and don't be afraid of speaking up for yourself. Because in nursing, you will have some people who will tend to walk over you. So she said to speak up, go for everything, and speak up and advocate for your patients. Given my personality and how quiet and shy I am, that was definitely good advice for me.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
The advice I would give is be yourself. Don't let anyone walk all over you. Make sure you advocate for your patients, because doctors will be passive-aggressive when it comes to certain patient demographics. Be an advocate for that patient when they can't speak up for themselves, and just be yourself, as well.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge would be seeing patients around the same age as me or my sister pass away. We just had an incident a few months back where we had a patient come in who was around the same age as me, mostly closer to my sister's age, and he passed away from something by a drunk driver. That was a challenge for me, and it was the first time I've dealt with something like that before. Just being able to call my family, call my sister, just to hear their voices and to let me know that everything is okay and that they're fine. The challenge would be relaying the message to that family member that he has passed away - that was the first time I've done that before, and it was hard.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
My values would be treating everyone how you would want to be treated. I'm very big on respect and receiving the same energy that someone gives me, and I believe that if I give off a calming energy, I have that ability to put people at ease and help people open up when they need someone to talk to, or just need to get something off of their chest. So, I really believe in respect and respect given.
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