By Diane Stonecipher, BSN, RN. The author lives in Texas. Her forthcoming Viewpoint essay in the October issue of AJN, “The Old Becomes New,” will consider aspects of nursing that may be obscured or lost due to overreliance on technology.

Heartstudy by James P. Wells, via Flickr

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that my initial interest in nursing came as a 10-year-old Yankees baseball fan. I could not get enough of The Mick, Elston Howard, or Mel Stottlemyre on my transistor radio, during televised games, or in my baseball card collection. I decided that I could be the team nurse—take their vital signs, set their broken bones, assess their injuries, and best of all, travel with the team.

This rather irrational desire was solidified when my aunt had a face lift. I was 14 at the time, and she recovered at our house, specifically in my room. She was swollen like a prize fighter, with bloody bandages that needed changing, pain medication to be dispensed, meals to be fed—I was hooked. I am not sure I even knew what a nurse really did, but my heart was stirred.

I sailed through high school, graduated with honors, and left for one of […]