If you have ever questioned whether you affect patients’ lives, I must tell you that you have affected my family and me. It has been 7 years since I received a heart transplant after waiting 8 long months in intensive care. Sometimes it is hard for me to believe it even happened. My thoughts ranged from anger and depression while questioning whether I could muster up the emotional strength to wait for a transplant to fear and uncertainty over whether I would even survive until the transplantation could be performed. Through it all, critical care nurses kept me alive, physically and emotionally, while I waited for a lifesaving transplant.

I never thought I would need a heart transplant. It all happened while I was in graduate school at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, busy living my life and planning for a career with the US State Department working overseas. I...

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