[MUSIC PLAYING] I've always been attracted to the nursing profession. But I would say the thing that solidified what I wanted to do was when my soccer coach had died from cancer. His daughter, who I played with all year, pretty much from grade school on up, told me that the nurses taking care of her dad made all the difference. So that was when it solidified, and I was like, that's what I want to do with my life.
--to reach our team goal of a million.
I created a scholarship fund for nurses because it was a lot of things coming together at the same time in my life. And one of them was my wife was a nurse. Her name was Jane Locklear-Becker. She had gotten cancer and passed away, and I wanted to do something to memorialize her. In her last weeks, she was a patient at Abbott. And the care that she got from the nurses, and actually, the care that I got from the nurses in those last weeks was just, I thought, so exceptional that it was really something that I wanted to honor and to reward.
When I read Alina's application, it did stand out, first of all, that she was in the mental health area, which is where Jane started as a nurse. So that connected with me right away. But also, just that there was a certain passion there that she really enjoyed what she did.
In nursing school, I was trying to find my niche, I guess you could say. And when we got to the mental health section, I was just totally intrigued by that and wanted to learn more. So I got a scholarship-- or an internship, I should say, at HCMC and totally loved it, and their mental health. And then, from there, I just had interest in it. And that's what led to it.
It's important, I would say, to invest in nurses because they are the ones on the front lines. If I was ever in a hospital needing medical care, I would certainly want the best qualified, best able person to be providing that care for me. So why wouldn't I want to do that?
The thing that excites me most about being at work is knowing that I do have the opportunity every day to make a difference. I feel very grateful. At the end of my nursing career, I hope to be a nurse practitioner, as that's kind of what I'm going for now, the mental health nurse practitioner. And obviously, I hope to be able to help and make a difference in as many patients' lives doing that as I can.
At the end of my life, let's say, I would hope to be able to look back and say, I did what I could to help. And that's everyone's mission, I think. It should be, at least, in life. And to be able to help Alina and others get more education, and advanced degrees, and so forth, is to be able to touch them in a positive sense, and to be able to send them out to touch others. And so, of course, it's the whole ripples on the lake thing when you're throwing the pebble in. And hopefully that creates nothing but good in this world. And certainly, we can use as much of that as we can get.
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