Adrienne Rogers MSN, RN
Nurse Manager: Children's School Services
“ Failure Is not An Option”
It was the end of my junior year of high school, when my mother asked me what my plans are for my future. I told her I wanted to be a teacher or a dancer /choreographer or both. She then told me I should pick something where you will always have a job; probably responding to the dancer thought. She then said something that was profound to me. She said people will always be sick or die. Maybe you should think about the medical field or mortuary science. My first thought was I do not want to work around dead people all the time. I rather see people healed and be well.
I decided I wanted to be a nurse. I had always loved taking care of animals and people so nursing it was. After my first year at North Carolina Central University, I decided to transfer to Howard University where I majored in Nursing and Fine Arts with concentration of dance. One semester I did poorly because I took 22 credits which were all science courses. I was told by my advisor that maybe nursing is not for me and I should concentrate my efforts on Fine Arts. I walked out of her office in tears. I sat in my room praying to God, what am I going to do? At that point, something rose up in me and I heard a voice say “Failure is not an Option for me”. I then stood up with righteous indignation and shouted, “I am not going to let someone tell me I cannot achieve my dream of becoming a nurse. Five years later, I completed my nursing program. That summer, I took my nursing boards only to find out; I failed by one point on the medical-surgical section. I was devastated. The second time I took the boards, I passed with flying colors. I was then able to work at Greater Southeast as a RN. It felt so good.
Over the years I have been School Nurse of the year, Extraordinary Nurse of the Year, and achieve many awards and accomplishments over my career as a Registered Nurse. As I moved along in my nursing career, I always seemed to find myself around nursing students who were practicing on my floor and I found myself naturally taking an interest in them to help them succeed. I even helped them prepare to take the state boards and prayed they would pass the first time around. I also found myself mentoring new employees that my nurse manager would assign to me. As a Nurse Manager, I still find myself mentoring employees in the specialty field of School Health. My goal is to help nurses to achieve more in the wonderful profession of nursing and know that they have made a difference in the lives of the people they serve.
At the end of the day, I am so grateful I did
not follow my advisor’s recommendation of not becoming a nurse and yielding to
that voice which I believe was the Lord.