Guyanese citizen Dianne Fiedtkou shares her successes and struggles of entering the medical field.
Written by: Tieressa Fiedtkou
Dianne Fiedtkou is the third daughter of a large family that resided in the poverty-stricken city of Georgetown, Guyana. At a young age, she wasn’t presented with many opportunities to learn as quickly as other children did. While she observed her siblings growing up and moving on with their lives, she never quite understood what to do with hers. It wasn’t until she began aiding her friends with their injuries that she eventually realized what she wanted to pursue within the next decade: nursing.
With twenty years of experience under her belt, Fiedtkou is able to confidently announce her full list of nursing credentials to whoever questions her for them. Fiedtkou’s credentials are RN, BSN, MSN. From Friday to Sunday, she works as a registered nurse on a pulmonary unit at The Silvercrest Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, where mostly elderly patients are brought in for treatment. Throughout the week, from Monday to Thursday, she takes on the role as a RN supervisor in an office of Any-Time Home Care Inc, a nursing facility that seeks out healthcare workers to care for patients that are restricted to their homes.
When asked for the main reason why Fiedtkou decided to become a nurse, she delved into her childhood likeliness for helping other people. Growing up, she favored the idea of using her own earned knowledge, skills, and abilities to heal or cure a person from their diseases or conditions. Fiedtkou admitted to having very few close friends within her neighborhood that often came to her with minor wounds on her arms and legs. Fiedtkou was ultimately unable to watch from afar as their faces tightened from pain, which is why she set aside her chores to clean up and bandage their cuts. “I had the urge within to be of some help. It never felt good seeing them hurt, and I felt worse watching them walk around so bruised up. Since I wasn’t allowed to express myself at home, I managed to do so outside in the comfort of my peers. Wrapping up cuts was the start to my passion,” Fiedtkou shares with a smile of nostalgia.
At the question of which individual inspired her to become a nurse, Fiedtkou quickly responded with the full name of her mother, Balmatee Fiedtkou. Fiedtkou would constantly observe her mother returning home from work during the late hours of the night, dressed in the old nursing attire with papers in her hands. One night, after finally giving into her curiosity, Fiedtkou emerged to ask her mother about the specifics of her job. Fiedtkou went on to say that her mother explained “a nurse is a person who helps people so they can continue living their lives”. There would be multiple patients that were assigned to her mother all at once, and it was her responsibility to check in on their conditions and ensure their stability. “Pain was also a key detail my mother stressed at the time,” Fiedtkou adds on to her recounting. “If a patient was in pain, then it means her job wasn’t done correctly. She would remain with that patient until their pain level decreased to the lowest possible point. After leaving Guyana and relocating in New York, Fiedtkou proudly professed that she became a nurse to follow in her mother’s footsteps.
Fiedtkou did not have peers that also decided to pursue a nursing degree. When she explained to them that she would move to America to start her career path, her friends, although respectful, affirmed they would remain in Guyana to continue with their own lives. “It was the financial aspect that caused them to turn away,” Fiedtkou clarifies when asked the possibility of their rejection. “Many families in Guyana weren’t able to afford essential necessities. I was lucky my parents had enough to afford sending my sisters and I to school. Not every child had the same luxury.” Fiedtkou would then share that the college expenses were “very costly” on paper and in person once she arrived in the United States. “Since I didn’t have colleagues or associates at the time I began my studies, I was pretty much alone and had no one to properly relate to.” She couldn’t turn to anyone for assistance or guidance if she ever became stuck. Fiedtkou had to power through by herself for most if not all of her college life.
The question of the journey to becoming a nurse had Fiedtkou somewhat tearing up. “The road to becoming a nurse was very long and strenuous,” she started off carefully. “It required me to stay up late at night to study every single piece of information I was taught in classes. The NCLEX exam was the light at the end of the tunnel in a sense for me. I worked endlessly to keep trekking forward.” Fiedtkou explains that her path to becoming a nurse wasn’t at all easy. She was often stressed at the idea of failing the boards exam. There were days where she didn’t feel motivated to eat or leave her apartment in fear of missing any time to look over her notes. Fiedtkou even goes as far to say that she has cried from extensively worrying about her progress. The idea of success was strong, but the idea of failure was stronger and hindered her ability to remained focused.
“I earned my nursing degree after attending Long Island University for four full years,” Fiedtkou responds to the question of location. She had an apartment that wasn’t close to the college building. Fiedtkou had to wake up early, or within a reasonable time given her poor sleeping schedule, to rush and make the nearest bus so it could take her to the campus. There were even mornings where she had to forgo breakfast and preparing lunch. When asked if she went to obtain her master’s, Fiedtkou confirmed that she did once she attended Grand Canyon University for two years. “This was seventeen years after I had already achieved my bachelor’s,” she explains. “With two children to take care of, I didn’t have the proper time to go for the degree and spent most of those years providing for them. Once they grew up, I dropped everything to start studying again.”
Nurses have multiple aspects that allow them to fully embrace their work and how they choose to do it. When faced with the aspect she appreciated the most, Fiedtkou took a short while to gather her thoughts. “There are many aspects of being a nurse that I enjoy wholeheartedly. If I had to choose just one, I would say the power to be able to nurse someone back to proper health using my own earned knowledge.” Fiedtkou likes the idea of applying what she learned all those years in nursing school in the healthcare setting with live patients. She has the confidence to assist her patients with their needs. She rarely feels lost when encountered with a patient with a serious condition and begins her care immediately.
Fiedtkou’s life has changed significantly since she began her profession. She felt that it changed in the sense that she knew she was doing the right thing with nursing. Her influence has reached many people, friends, and their children. Fiedtkou was able to see the importance of the healthcare team and understand the benefit they are to society. “I’m able to relay my knowledge down onto my children and have a daughter already on the same road I once took to becoming a nurse herself. My son is also planning on earning a nursing degree. There were so many people I helped and saved because I made the decision to go for nursing.” As a closing statement, Fiedtkou states that her life “changed for the better” and that she never regrets putting her foot down that day all those years ago.
The feeling Fiedtkou receives after returning home from a nursing shift is divided into three sections. First, she admits to always feeling a sense of accomplishment once a shift from Silvercrest is completed. “Knowing that I was able to use my own hands to heal someone is a very powerful feeling,” she says to support her answer. Fiedtkou also confesses to being proud at the mention of her patients successfully discharging onto rehabilitation or back at their homes in secured conditions. Although she does jokingly add that she mostly feels tired after a shift is complete, she confesses that the idea of helping people live to see another day is far more rewarding to her in the end.
Fiedtkou doesn’t intend to quit nursing anytime soon. She remains adamant in extending her years of service and proclaims to continue working despite already reaching her goal. Her profession as a nurse will forever be a highlighted mark in hers and other’s books. Even though she initially started out unsure, she remained true to her passions and beliefs long enough to finally taste the prize of success.