By: Yale School of Nursing
Many factors shape nursing futures. For Sam Mensah, who will receive her Master of Science in Nursing degree in May, the desire to become a nurse was strongly influenced by her family history.
“I was born and raised in Ghana, West Africa. I lived there until about age 13, and then I came to the United States. My pathway to medicine started when I was a child. Since I lived in Ghana with just my dad—my mom was here—we had a lot of nannies. One of them raised me until she passed away when I was 11 or 12.
“She had surgery at the time, and I was told that she was expected to fully recover. But Ghana is a developing country, and we don’t always have access to high-quality health care or surgical care. My nanny died. That got me looking into why she died—her prognosis, basically everything.”
“I later found that my family has a history of hypertension and diabetes, and my dad had kidney stones that had to be removed. Looking into all those things, I began to develop an interest in the human body and in science.
“So, I went to high school and took a lot of chemistry. I realized that I really loved chemistry and biology because they go hand in hand.”
Mensah’s academic excellence led her to a pre-med track at the University of Rochester.
“I was set on surgery because I wanted to be the best surgeon there is, because of what had happened when I was a child.”
While preparing essays for medical school admission, Mensah received some unexpected advice from a mentor.
“Your essay shows that you care about people, but there’s more to medicine than just going into surgery. So why don’t you take a gap year and make sure that’s really what you want to do?”
Though surprised and frustrated by the advice, Mensah took it. During her gap year, she met a nurse practitioner.
“I was working as a medical scribe. We’d go in, see the patient—bada boom, bada bang—and we were out of there. But then the nurse practitioner would come in and spend extra time with the patient, trying to make a plan for that individual.
“So, I asked, ‘What’s your role?’ and she said, ‘Oh, I’m the nurse practitioner.’
“I said, ‘What’s a nurse practitioner? Are you a nurse or not?’ That’s when she explained what nurse practitioners do.
“I went back to the essay I had written in college for my medical school applications. I read it again, and I thought, ‘Oh, I want to advocate for my patients. I want to treat patients as a whole. I want to consider various factors.’”
Sam realized she wanted to become a nurse practitioner. Her choice to attend Yale School of Nursing was influenced by the support, environment, and opportunities it offered.
“I think the entire Yale community, but especially YSN, is very intentional about its students and making sure you feel comfortable in the setting. One important factor, in addition to that intentionality, was that YSN finds clinical placements for you—not every school does that.
“Before I committed to Yale, I was introduced to one of the graduating students. She told me that you get out of it what you put into it—everyone’s experience is different. But if you’re able to connect with the preceptors, it makes a big difference, because the preceptors Yale has have great connections. And it’s true—they have strong connections within the Yale system and beyond. That networking is very important.”
After graduating as a family nurse practitioner, Sam is headed to a two-year residency in a community health clinic. She will be a resident in the first year and a full-time employee in the second.
“We’ll see where life takes me from there,” says Sam.