Jadyn Mullen will graduate with her BSN from the College of Nursing and a certificate from the Pierre Laclede Honors College later this month. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)
Jadyn Mullen has known she wanted to be a nurse for as long as she can remember, but it wasn’t until she watched a video in Assistant Teaching Professor Michelle Barrier’s communication class at the University of Missouri–St. Louis that she knew exactly what path she wanted to follow.
Learning about the maternal mortality rate of Black women – which is nearly three times higher than that of white women – made Mullen realize she wanted to be an active part of the solution by becoming a labor and delivery nurse.
“I have a passion for helping people, and I want to be a labor and delivery nurse specifically because the Black maternal mortality rate is so high – it’s higher than any other race,” Mullen said. “Me being a labor and delivery nurse, that’s me helping to reduce that statistic. I want to further my education so that I can help even more. That’s really been my motivation: continuing my nursing education to learn about maternal health and labor and delivery.”
Mullen will graduate with her BSN from the College of Nursing and a certificate from the Pierre Laclede Honors College later this month. Over the past few years, she’s gotten plenty of hands-on experience working in labor and delivery and other areas of nursing such as pediatrics, operating rooms and medical-surgery units.
“In my particular group for my clinicals, the meds and clinical instructors really let us kind of jump into the field,” Mullen said. “They’re always there if we need help, but it was never like we were shadowing; it’s like we’re stepping into that nursing role. And I think that’s really prepared me for graduation and actually becoming a nurse.”
Over this past summer, Mullen also completed an externship through UMSL at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in the labor and delivery wing, and she completed her senior synthesis clinical in labor and delivery. Both opportunities gave her crucial hands-on experience that helped her master nursing skills such as fetal monitoring and conducting cervical checks that she didn’t learn through her other clinicals. They also helped reaffirm for her that labor and delivery nursing is exactly where she needs to be.
“I get really good feedback from a lot of patients and staff who have said, ‘Oh, you’re going to be an excellent nurse,’” Mullen said. “I’ve been working on therapeutic communication because it’s very big in labor and delivery – you’re watching your patient at their most vulnerable moment – and I get a lot of good feedback on my therapeutic communication. I’ve had multiple job offers in labor and delivery, so that really motivates me to keep going. I feel like this is where I’m supposed to be.”
Ever since Mullen has known she wanted to be a labor and delivery nurse, she’s wanted to work at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. The hospital has a high-risk pregnancy team, which Mullen knows will give her invaluable experience to help her grow as a nurse, and she believes Barnes will be able to better support her down the road if she chooses to further her education. Still, it took her months to evaluate her job offers, researching the companies, digging into benefits and speaking with employees, to make her decision. Eventually, though, she knew Barnes was the right fit, and she’ll start working as a labor and delivery nurse at the hospital after graduation.
Mullen will be assisting moms with their labor process, including checking their cervixes, assisting with the delivery process, assisting with C-sections as a circulating nurse, monitoring babies and assisting with the recovery process.
“That’s the most important part of my job: making sure that we have a healthy baby and a healthy mom,” Mullen said. “It’s incredibly rewarding knowing that I helped bring life into the world. Pregnancy can be scary, so being there for your patient in the good and bad moments is so important. If patients don’t have a good experience during their labor process, they remember that for the rest of their lives. I want to make their labor process a good, memorable moment for them.”
Mullen, who was active in several student organizations while at UMSL, feels that the university prepared her “100%” for this next step. The Honors College taught her how to speak and write more professionally, which she feels has made her better at interviews. The College of Nursing, meanwhile, gave her critical hands-on clinical experience that will make for an easy transition into labor and delivery nursing.
“A lot of our teachers were labor and delivery nurses, so I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from them on what to expect and what to look out for,” Mullen said. “Our OB class, even though it was so, so hard, it was actually a lot more informational than any of us thought. Being in the labor and delivery field, I got to go back to the classroom and go, ‘Yeah, we did learn about this.’ I know what to look for. I know when the baby is telling me he or she is in distress or he or she is happy. And I’ve learned that through UMSL. I just really appreciate the Honors College and UMSL for preparing me for these next steps in life.”
