All About Me 

My name is Elais and this is all about me, Your Nurse Friday. I did not initially begin my educational path knowing that I wanted to be a nurse, I did, in fact, want to be a coroner. I was inspired by years of watching Scully on the X-Files – her skeptical and medically centered approach acting as a grounding force for the weekly bizarre and quirky episodes revolving around the paranormal. I had several opportunities to shadow medical professionals (surgeons and scientists) while in high school and attended a weeklong introduction to medicine after graduating high school, which is where I witnessed my first autopsy.

I started university in Vancouver, British Columbia feeling confident that the path towards my life as a coroner was the right one for me…unfortunately Chemistry 101 did not feel the same way. After I failed my first class ever (along with more than 70% of my classmates), I finished first term of my first year feeling completely lost. I decided to enroll in more arts based classes in my second term, which is how I found my way into entry level psychology and anthropology courses. I also started working at an audiophysiology laboratory, as an assistant helping to perform hearing studies on infants and adults, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I also found myself enjoying my developmental psychology and medical anthropology courses and settled into a new realization that my occupational path may not lie amongst the hard sciences.

So as I started my third year, like all my other peers, I wondered what I was to do with my life. I knew that I enjoyed the medical aspects of anthropology and the hands-on experience of working with a whole range of people in the lab. I happened to pick up a pamphlet about nursing in my academic counselor’s office – it caught my eye because no where did it say I needed any chemistry courses to enter the program (yay for me!). This small trifold black and white piece of paper opened me up to a new occupational possibility – and I went for it. Fourth year I graduated with a degree in psychology and anthropology and was admitted to an intensive three-year, year-round nursing program in a city that neighbored Vancouver. It was there that I found a love for a nursing, then passion for wound care, and ultimately a calling to home health care.

Through a whirlwind of four years, three moves (one international), a graduation, and a marriage, I found myself in Santa Fe, New Mexico, starting my first business. My name is Elais, I am a home health nurse, and I am part owner and operator of Nurses With Heart Home Care. Your Nurse Friday is a blog of my experiences as a nurse, small business owner, and Canadian/American living in the Southwest. I hope you enjoy and look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Thanks in advance for being awesome e-readers 😉

– Your Nurse Friday