After graduating with her BSN and a certificate from the Pierre Laclede Honors College, Sarah Barksdale will be working as a registered nurse in the Heart Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

During her very first clinical in the College of Nursing at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, Sarah Barksdale cried along with her patient. The woman was in severe pain, which was difficult for Barksdale to witness, but she wanted to be there with her so she wouldn’t be alone in her pain. It was a moving experience, and one that cemented her love of nursing and taking care of others.

“That’s kind of how I knew that I found what I wanted to do, because I would rather be there crying with the patient than for them to be crying alone,” she remembered.

Building those kinds of connections with patients is what drew Barksdale, who will graduate with her BSN and a certificate from the Pierre Laclede Honors College this weekend, to nursing. From an early age, she excelled in science courses and hoped to find a career that would allow her to help people in their worst moments. With a passion for working with kids, she thought she might pursue a career in education, even working as a substitute teacher for a while, but she was particularly drawn to the critical thinking involved in nursing.

When Barksdale completed an externship in the Heart Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, she quickly fell in love with both the physiology of the heart and her younger patient population. On the very last day of her externship, she had an especially memorable moment with a preschool-age patient who was having a bad day. To try to cheer him up, Barksdale and her preceptor made their patient a balloon out of gloves and played around with him for a while. Eventually, they heard him let out a deep belly laugh for the first time in nearly two months. The moment reaffirmed for Barksdale that she had found her place.

After graduation, Barksdale will be returning to the Heart Center as a registered nurse. In the cardiac ICU, she’ll be caring for children born with congenital heart defects, watching for symptoms and administering medications. She’s looking forward to learning a lot more about the heart, but she’s just as excited for her interactions with the kids themselves. Just as much as any other part of her job, she sees it as vital to make sure her patients still feel like kids.

“It’s really important to treat them like kids and help preserve as much of their childhood as possible,” Barksdale said. “I just want them to have as normal and as happy of a childhood as possible, even when they’re in the hospital. It’s an honor to work with kids in their worst moments, and I just want to do my best for them.”

Barksdale feels like her experience both in the Honors College and College of Nursing has set her up for success in this new role. While challenging, the courses in the College of Nursing have prepared her well to take the National Council Licensure Examination for registered nurses and communicate with patient and doctors. Her nursing courses also helped her learn a lot about herself and challenged her to think in ways she never had before.

Similarly, the small, discussion-based classes in the Honors College – such as Associate Teaching Professor Dan Gerth’s Counter Culture course – challenged her point of view and preconceived notions and opened her eyes to a lot of different perspectives. She feels that mindset will make her a better, more compassionate nurse.

“It’s hard to teach compassion, but the experiences that I’ve had at UMSL have definitely set me up to learn how to treat people, and to think about the whole picture, to think outside the box,” she said. “In the Honors College, they teach you a lot of different perspectives, and it also teaches you to be very open-minded, which is extremely important in nursing, because you’re dealing with tons of different people, people you’re not going to always agree with necessarily, but you still have to respect them, and you have to understand where they’re coming from. I feel like the Honors College has prepared me for dealing with different types of people, people that I would not generally interact with outside of nursing.”