The Inner Motivation of Choosing a Nursing Career among Filipinos

I still remember the days when I graduated in high school, a period of many possibilities for my future profession. Shall I be a lawyer? a businessman? a doctor? or shall I be a NURSE(the most popular course to choose during those times)? I was greatly perplexed why people take up nursing. As I reminisce the day I took up my college entrance test in my former Alma Mater (Cebu City Medical Center College of Nursing in consortium with Cebu State College (now known as Cebu Normal University). I was given a chance to talk to my co-incoming freshmen students that were standing, talking and sitting with me while waiting for the proctor to come inside the testing center. I definitely had the chance to inquire from them what course they will take. Some said they want to take Commerce, others are Engineering, and some were Business Administration. But, mostly said they preferred Nursing as their college course.

From that moment, I pondered intently why most students want to become a Nurse? Is it because they really like to practice their profession of being a nurse someday in the Philippines or is it a great chance to go overseas and earn dollars? Most of them said, "I choose Nursing in order to serve my fellowmen". (Oh really?? Yeah, right they want to be heroes... Duh, its just a cliche perhaps.-- this was what I thought then)... Where are these pioneer ( and now expert) nurses??? They are nowhere to be found here in the Philippines. You wont find them serving their fellow Filipino people. Then I wondered, ah yes, I was duped because they are still serving their "fellowmen" a.k.a. "foreigners in foreign lands"  ..... ha ha ha ... They still honored what they said before .... but in a different context ... Yeah, right ...