Lindsay Gray, a junior at the University of North Dakota, says that she didn’t decide on the field of nursing, it decided on her. Starting her clinicals in Grand Forks hospitals has assured her that the time she has put into her education is paying off by allowing her to continuously serve others.

In their junior year, nurses at UND start their clinical work, putting their skills to the test. During the spring of 2008 Gray worked on the orthopedic and neurological floor of Altru Hospital in Grand Forks. At first, working in a hospital was a little daunting and Gray worried that she wasn’t ready. But with the help of other nurses, she stepped up to the plate.

“You can never feel like you are completely ready because there is always more to understand, more to learn,” Gray explained. “ Now I have the confidence that I know what to do in those rooms. My patients have a problem and I am amazed that I know what do to. The topics I have been working so hard to memorize are put in play.” And the amount of studying she had to put in to reach that point was substantial.

“There were times when I had to make the choice of studying when my friends weren’t. When I had to apply myself when maybe other people didn’t,” she recalled. “When it is getting hard and overwhelming and it’s hard to imagine it can ever be worth it, I remember it is worth it and I am going to make a difference whatever I do as a nurse,” she said.

Working with patients, has helped Gray realize the importance of her role as a nurse.

“I don’t know a single nurse who is happy or excited to clean out or empty a catheter. Or change an infected wound. But when you are in that setting you are still yourself but you are in a role. Patients need you, they need your help.” But even more, she has realized her position to assist people when they are at their most helpless.

“There are times I am in patients’ room and it hits me that this is really what I want to do,” she said with a smile.

During her two semesters of clinicals Gray has worked with more than forty patients, and she says that memories of each one comes to her when she least expects them. She remembers fondly one elderly man, a former polka announcer now confined to a wheelchair.

 “I could have gone in there every single day and I would have enjoyed it,” Gray said. “I got to learn about his life and experiences. It is not that he had won a prize or discovered something amazing, but he was an amazing person in his views on life. Even with the disease phase he had to deal with every single day, he was so wise and sweet. One day he said, ‘if I could still walk, I would teach you how to polka right now.’ You can’t put that in words. It’s something you can just feel. A connection with people. I will never forget that or the time I spent getting to know him.”

With a busy high school and college life, Gray has learned to balance her dedication and determination with her compassion and desire to serve others. While at UND she has taken part in Relay for Life, an Alzheimer’s memory walk, a thirty-hour famine for world hunger, and CREW Christian Organizing. Additionally, she is a UND student ambassador putting together career fairs and Thanksgiving dinners, interviewing new college president candidates, and working with freshmen.

“It almost sounds selfish, but I get so much back from giving,” Gray said, explaining her life-consuming service of others. “It is so addicting to me. If I have to have an addiction that is what I want to it be. It is such a comforting and personally gratifying thing. I am not just taking up space here. It doesn’t have to be huge for me, just helping one person. I cannot describe the gratification from simply going out of my way to help someone else.”

Nursing, for Gray, is the fulfillment of her addiction.

“Being a nurse is more of having a gift than having a job,” she said. “I am so humbled and grateful to work with the people I work with. The pay off of all the hard work in school is how I get to help people for the rest of my life and how grateful they will be for my work. It is well worth it, more than you can imagine. I think that I am not even a nurse yet,” she laughed, “I am excited for what the future holds, that is for sure.”