Today we’d like to introduce you to Bria Ranson.
Hi Bria, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be a nurse. I don’t even think I can say it’s something that I wanted but more so something I was just born to do. It’s almost as if it was innate. My grandmother, who is still working as a nurse today, would bring me to her job, as a child, and I’d get to see glimpses of her on the move. She also took care of her terminally ill brother so I got to see her more in action at home with him. I still remember the smell of the Lysol she’d spray in his room when she cleaned. In my senior year of high school, I enrolled in the Certified Nursing Assistant academy at the Howard County Applied Research Laboratory. I became certified when I graduated high school and went on to start my freshman year of college at Howard University.
I was completely out of my element at what I thought was my dream school. My grades suffered as I slipped into a depression. I was used to excelling in the classroom and the school was a bit too chaotic for me to truly get my footing. I transferred to Howard Community College and got a job as a Patient Care Technician at Baltimore Washington Medical Center, on the inpatient psych unit. I felt my best at this time. I was working full time and going to school full time. I began to apply to four-year schools to complete my nursing degree but got denied by almost all of them. I ended up transferring to Salisbury University and decided that I would work my way into their program by completing their prerequisites.
When I visited the campus to sign up for classes, meet with advisors and speak with the dean of the program, I was excited, until the dean of the school of nursing looked at my grades and told me that based open my transcripts I “shouldn’t even apply.” I was crushed, to say the least. I felt that God had made me be a nurse and yet, somehow, doors kept getting closed in my face. I changed my major to Exercise Science, with the aid of my advisor, and deemed the change as “preventative healthcare”. It felt like a lie but I wanted to look and feel successful by any means necessary, even if it meant doing something I wasn’t that passionate about, I graduated and became a personal trainer. I didn’t really care about it the way that I did nursing but I didn’t want to stay in college for more than four years because what would my friends and family have thought? I felt like I had some image to uphold and that alone kept me in a mental cage.
After about a year and a half, I was working as a personal trainer manager and I was speaking to a potential client who told me that she was a new cardiac nurse looking for a personal trainer. That was my lightbulb moment. I had been praying to God about what I should do with my nursing career and He sent me her. I had always loved the heart; its anatomy and physiology and how it’s truly the powerhouse of the body, so her being a cardiac nurse was the “wink” from God that I needed. I quit my job that week, renewed my CNA certification, and applied to 17 jobs at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Once again I was praying for direction and the next day the HR liaison for the Cardiac Surgery Stepdown Unit contacted me and that’s where I work today.
I applied to Howard Community College’s Nursing Program and was waitlisted a semester but used that time to pay off a large portion of debt just in case I wouldn’t be able to manage working while in school. This fall, I will be entering into my last semester of nursing school at Howard Community College and I will graduate to be a cardiac nurse. God has done so much for me in this short amount of time. If you ask He will reveal whatever it is that you need to know and if you trust Him, He’ll take you further than you ever intended to go.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
This road has been ROUGH! I struggled with a lot of identity issues, I cared about what others thought WAY too much and I didn’t believe what God said to be true. Right before school started I lost my dad’s mom and my stepdad within months of each other and that sent me spiraling for a few months. In that time I fully committed my life to God and did my very best to trust Him. When I was in the process of paying off debt, I remember praying to God to help me see my money as a tool.
The next morning I checked the mail and had a check from my grandmother’s remaining retirement account. I was able to pay off my car a year early and buy myself a laptop for school. I tell that story to say that even in the midst of tragedy God will still make a way.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I work as a Patient Care Technician assisting the nurses on my unit. I do blood draws blood pressures, etc. I specialize in cardiac surgery where our patients are either getting ready to have surgery or just had surgery. Our patients are a mix of heart surgery, heart transplants, or lung transplants. I’m most proud of my team, the work that we do, and the lives that we save. No pun intended but I think what sets me apart from others is my heart. I really care about my patients and want them all to do well.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
If you want to get into nursing get whatever experience you can as soon as you can. Get your feet wet just to see if you like it. If you have a dream in your heart that you truly know is for you then don’t worry about what people will think; worry about whether or not you’ll be happy. Don’t let anyone or anything stop you!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @brianiche
