Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Melanie Gomez. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Melanie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

When I think of a risk I’ve taken in my life, the first thing that immediately pops into my head was when I accepted my first nursing position as a new grad, for a covid floor. On the date of June 2020, I accepted my first new graduate job position on a covid floor. At that point in time, I had heard of covid but never really seen the true effects of it. As many nurses would agree, working during covid times was nothing like the “pre” covid nursing. New policies, plans of care, as well as medications were being established as more and more research came along. The truth was, we were figuring things out as we went. I was terrified. It was a risk that I knew could’ve affected me and my family, but I knew that as a nurse, I had to do my part and help those in need of medical care and treatment. Looking back, I am extremely proud of myself for taking such a great risk. I am grateful that I was able to provide care, comfort, and peace to those who were just as terrified as we were. We were all afraid of the unknown of this virus, yet we came together and risked our lives to help others.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Melanie Gomez and I create nursing related content for @cafeconscrubs. This is a social media page that I originally created in nursing school to showcase study notes to help other students succeed in nursing school. Once tik tok was created, I decided that I would film real life scenarios of my time at hospitals in Miami, where I was born and raised. Since then I’ve partnered with numerous brands to help promote their products such as uniform advantage and Lago. I’ve also been fortunate to work with simple nursing- an educational website designed to help nursing students through the rigorous journey of nursing school, and I continue to share humorous videos about my journey in nursing and help shine a light to the hard work that we do on a daily basis.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

Discipline and accountability is key to having a successful career in nursing. While studying and knowledge take great importance, accountability of your work and care is what sets you apart from others. We are imperfect human beings. We are bound to make mistakes. However, it’s how I respond to those mistakes and take responsibility for them. Healthcare is continually evolving and changing daily. It is up to us to stay current, study, learn from our mistakes and strive to better ourselves. In this way, we will grow and become better healthcare professionals.

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?

if I could go back in time, I would have chosen the same exact profession. Nursing is such an admirable career path. Many people aren’t exactly aware of all of the hard work that’s required for our field. We are in many situations a patients comfort, family, friend, and most of all, we are patient advocates. I’m the patient’s voice when they can’t speak for themselves. We are the doctor’s eyes and ears. We spend countless hours at the bedside provide physical and mental care to our patients. This is something I take pride in and invite others to consider as a profession. Nurses are true heroes.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Cafeconscrubs
• Other: Tik tok: Cafeconscrubs

Image Credits
Med couture scrubs Uniform advantage West coast university