My Experience - A Nursing School Graduate During a Global Pandemic

I passed my NCLEX exam and obtained my official, physical nursing license in the Spring of 2021. I was ecstatic about the accomplishment, but still felt a lingering, uneasy stress. I attended nursing school during a global pandemic and was uncertain of my future. I got my license, but now what?

That April, I set a tentative course to integrate myself into the hospital system while working for Daybreak Health as a part-time vaccinator at the Fulton Senior Community Center. Back then, I was still undecided on which area of nursing I wanted to pursue for a profession, but was excited to help use my newfound skills to help New Yorkers recover from COVID-19 in any way I could. Between that time last year and now, my experience as a member of the Daybreak team has made me revise my plans, and I am now prepared to dedicate myself to community nursing.

As a frontline provider during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve run into many challenges in the field, from battling medical misinformation and easing the fears of people who live in underserved communities, to mitigating difficult conversations regarding testing results with patients during the Delta and Omicron waves. However, no matter what obstacle I came across, I always felt that I had a network of constant support around me at Daybreak. I vividly remember during my first week on the job, all five of my nursing team members and my supervisor stepped in to help me administer a vaccine to a teenager who had an immense fear of needles.?

Now working as a full-time staff nurse at Daybreak, I have worked in vaccination clinics, pop-up vaccination sites at churches and schools, and on vaccination buses before and during Pride 2021. I have facilitated group testing events for Broadway shows, helped productions and fashion photoshoots return to work safely, and built meaningful relationships along the way. There have been some days where I’ve run across the city to several clients’ homes to provide them with individual concierge testing services, and most recently, I have even flown across the country to help with a testing event in Austin, Texas. Despite all of the craziness that comes with staffing a public health response, I have never felt like I was alone. No matter how busy we all were, or how many simultaneous events were going on at once, I've always had my voice heard.

In Daybreak I have found a community, and that community is what makes me believe in their vision to provide innovative community-based care to those who need it most. I’ve forged so many great memories already as a member of the Daybreak team, too many to list in the detail that they deserve, and I’m excited to make many more in the future.

- Elizabeth Ku, RN | Staff Nurse at Daybreak Health