Nursing Student Caring for Grandparents Inspired to Pursue a Career in Medical Care
Nursing student Khushi Iyer ’24 has her grandparents living with her. When she had the opportunity to care for them and learn from them, she found herself inspired to pursue a career in the medical field.
Two grandparents live with the family of Khushi Iyer ’24, who says, “I really enjoy big families—it brings a lot of joy to the home. I’m very fortunate to have them in my life.” This experience has led her to want to pursue a career in healthcare and continue helping others.
Inspiring a Career
Iyer grew up helping to care for her grandparents. She would accompany them on doctor visits and help them around the house with everyday activities such as bathing, cleaning, and cooking. For Iyer, it’s about returning the care that her grandparents showed to her. “They changed my diapers as a kid, so why not help them out now when they need it the most?” she says. “I see the joy that it brings them and they appreciate the help that they get.”
Her maternal grandmother has dementia and wanted to give Iyer $5 for helping her put her socks on, but Iyer does it out of love. “It’s just small things like that—not even a big deal,” she says. “I love to help her.”
Shadowing Opportunity
Going into her senior year of high school, Iyer had the opportunity to shadow nurses and doctors at a local hospital. “It was really cool to see that I enjoyed the hospital environment from a young age,” she says. She found herself drawn to the work nurses were performing. “I saw what the nurses were doing and how much of an impact they were having on the patients.”
A friend of her father opened a senior day-care center and she had an opportunity to observe the benefits of programming there. She feels that one of the main problems in today’s society is that many families just don’t have the time to spend with their loved ones at home because of their work schedules. She says at the day-care center, seniors can go for the day and enjoy activities to boost their well-being.
Sadly, her paternal grandmother passed in 2018 with Parkinson’s Disease. Iyer says she saw her grandmother “sitting at home watching TV and I just felt so bad for her because she didn’t want to go out and take a walk by herself and she just wanted to stay at home.” Iyer adds, “I could see how much of a negative effect this had on her.” The day-care center for seniors offers the possibility for some normalcy and a more active and healthy lifestyle for older adults.
A Life of Service
Iyer can definitely see herself working in geriatrics but, she also loves working with younger ages as well. She feels it’s more unusual to hear of nursing students having an interest in providing care for the older generations rather than the usual labor and delivery and pediatrics. “I want to wait till clinicals so I can see which I like the most,” she says. “I don’t always have a set plan. I like to be flexible. And, I feel like that is important in the nursing world because if you just have a set plan, a lot of the time it’s not going to go the way that you want it to go.”
As a York College student, Iyer is an Eisenhart Scholar. She is involved in a lot of community service with the Scholars community and has always found herself drawn to giving back. “That’s been embedded into my life so that’s another thing I enjoy doing,” she said. “I have been fortunate enough to have different opportunities to engage with the community and that was a big thing that I was looking for when I went to a college. I want to still be able to continue serving others while I’m here because that was something that I did back at home.”
