Major: Nursing
Lynchburg’s nursing program equipped Brittany Hayden ’22 with the knowledge and critical thinking skills needed to be a nurse. It was her professors, however, who helped her discover how to love her profession, even in the midst of patients’ suffering.
“I had an amazing group of professors with different backgrounds in their nursing careers,” she said. “My preceptor for clinical my junior year really helped me decide what kind of nurse I wanted to be.
“She was knowledgeable, caring, and compassionate. She was with me while I was on the oncology floor, and I just felt drawn to that floor and those types of patients.”
As a chemo and medical surgery nurse at Centra Lynchburg General Hospital, many of Hayden’s daily responsibilities are routine: monitoring vitals, giving medications, changing dressings, and starting IVs.
The tough part? “I work with people with all stages of cancer,” she said. “I help provide emotional support to them while navigating their disease or going through treatment.
“I deal with a lot of compassion fatigue due to the fact that cancer doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care if you are 16 and just getting started with your life or a new mother. It can be heartbreaking to watch a family navigate this terrible disease.”
So why would Hayden choose to be in a setting that’s so challenging, where she experiences loss or at least witnesses patients enduring some degree of suffering?
“It’s both an honor and a privilege to take care of such a unique population of people,” she said. “They are some of the strongest people you will ever meet. Anything I can do to help ease their pain and suffering is an amazing thing.”
In addition to helping her patients, Hayden is now a preceptor as well, passing on her experience and expertise in the field to future nurses.
