By: Alison Bowen, Chicago Tribune
It was when Kristen Shikany was a patient herself that she decided to be a nurse.
With breast cancer, facing a double mastectomy in 2017, she remembers the comfort nurses provided as they wheeled her into surgery. She was worried about the outcome, losing her breasts, reconstruction.
“It wasn’t until I had breast cancer, and I had spent time with nurses and realized what an impact it had on me personally,” she said. “It seemed like it could be a meaningful career.”
Years later, as a nurse treating COVID patients during the pandemic, she has tried to use those patient, calming cues herself.
But it’s been nothing like what she pictured when she decided, as her three children became adults, to change careers.
For 25 years, Shikany worked in consulting, most recently with the title of managing director. In the back of her mind, she’d thought about possibly entering health care, maybe as a doctor or a physician assistant. But when her children were young, it seemed too much to juggle as well as afford child care while forging a new career path, and she did enjoy her work.
When her youngest was a senior in high school, and after experiencing the warmth and comfort of nurses during her own breast cancer hospitalization, the thought kept surfacing.
She thought, “They’re done needing me as much. This is a good time for me to explore my own things.” Read More
Nurse Kristen Shikany at Northwestern Memorial Hospital Feinberg Pavilion in Chicago on Dec. 10, 2021. (Photo by: Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune)