I met Teanna in Florida, when she was serving a church service mission. She is one of those gals who just has a light about her and is so positive. I loved being around her! And I’m so excited to be sharing her today.
Tell us a little about yourself and your career
My name is Teanna Fisher. I am a born and raised Arizonan. I am married to a wonderful man and we are expecting our first baby in March. Some of my favorite hobbies include reading, dancing, and spending time with my husband/best friend. I am a nurse at a local hospital and work in the OR (operating room) as a circulator. I’ve been a nurse for two years now. This career has been the most rewarding and emotionally taxing. As a nurse you get to experience some of the hardest moments in others lives, and some of the best. I’ve had patients who have some of the most heartbreaking stories of how they came to be where they were and others were incredibly hopeful and happy despite being in the hospital. Despite the emotionally taxing times, I would never trade my career for anything else. Nursing has been the best career for me!
Some of the greatest experiences I’ve had have been serving missions. One was a mission for my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I spent 18 months in the panhandle of Florida serving among some of the greatest people I’ve met. I learned how to love strangers and see people for their true worth that God gave them. The other mission that I have served was a medical mission in Kenya, Africa. I was lucky enough to go with my mom, and spent two weeks with 20 people I’ve never met before and helped over 400 people.
We worked in a medical clinic for 4 days triaging patients and completing 68 surgeries with 2 operating rooms. We worked 16 hour days and were completely exhausted. Even though it was an exhausting trip, it was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had. I have been blessed to have the education and career I do, and to go some place where people aren’t able to receive medical care they need was a truly humbling experience. Some of the patients we treated would look at you as if you were their personal savior, yet you were there to do what you’ve been trained to do. It’s difficult to put it into words, but I’ll never forget the humbling feeling of walking through rows of people who want to shake your hand and say thank you.
How does your community of women you surround yourself with support you?
One of the greatest blessings in my life are some of the women in my life. I have been blessed to have a group of girls who I call best friends that are hard working and driven. Each of them have different titles of careers, but they all understand how important women are in the world. These women are stay at home moms, life coaches, and other full time workers. Without this group of women, I’m not sure I would have made it through some of the difficult times I have faced. They have always encouraged my to be my best self, given me some great advice on how to handle conflict with coworkers and family, and have given my self confidence a boost. They are the first to remind me that my self worth is more than my appearance, career or financial status.
What advice do you have for women in nursing school?
My advice for anyone in nursing school is not to give up. Nursing school is hard. Like, ridiculously hard! I have never experienced such a grueling program before. In nursing school, the grades change. To receive a C, you have to have a minimum of 76%. To get an A, you have to have a 92% or greater. The standard is much higher because of how much responsibility we end up having in the field to keep patients alive. My first semester of nursing school, I barely passed.
My second semester, I completely flunked the first two tests of the five that determine if you’ll pass the semester. I had to drop an extra class I was taking and find a better way to study. With a lot of hard work and giving up some of the extra fun stuff I was doing, I ended up passing that semester with a B and graduated. So I get how hard it is. It’s a program that takes all of your extra time and thought and pulls you away from other fun things you could be doing, including some family activities. But don’t give up. Put in the hard work and study hard so that one day you can catch the small detail that will save someone’s life. The hard work of nursing school and NCLEX is so worth it! Don’t give up!
What do you wish you could go back and tell your younger self re: your career aspirations?
I would go back and tell my younger self that it’s all worth it. It’s not going to go as you planned, and it’s not going to be as quick as you hoped to finish your degree, but it’s the perfect way it needed to be. Because of how everything worked out, I met my husband (who is literally my perfect match), able to serve two incredible missions, and now get to welcome a baby boy into the world here soon. Everything needed to happen how it did so I can be where I am today.
What is your career-related mantra?
“Do not stress over what you cannot control”
As a nurse, it’s really easy to take things personally and beat yourself up over mistakes that are made. Some mistakes can’t be fixed as easily as others and if you’re not careful you can really put yourself down. The best thing to do is learn from it and change your practice. Unfortunately, there are a good handful of patients who aren’t very nice to their nurses. They can be degrading and draining. There are times where you have to take a deep breath and just let it roll off your back. “Don’t stress over what you cannot control” is a mantra that I find very fitting for the nursing career. At the end of the day, it is what it is and you can’t control the actions of others. Do your best, have integrity, and be honest.
