Pursuing a master’s degree is always going to be a juggling act, with students trying to keep school, work, and family responsibilities aloft. For nursing student Dwight Bascom, a high-pressure job as an emergency room nurse in the middle of a global pandemic adds another level of difficulty to the trick, transforming it into a high-wire act too.
Fortunately, Bascom has the support of his wife, children and the nursing department at California State University, Bakersfield to act as a net should he temporarily drop a ball or take an unsteady step. This spring, the hard work pays off with graduation, and possibly a standing ovation from a thoroughly impressed crowd, though Bascom isn’t ready to exhale just yet.
“Although I have finished the courses and assignments, I feel like it is still not over until I complete the boards,” Bascom said, referring to his final certification by the California Board of Registered Nursing. “Once I pass them, I feel like I will finally complete the program. The program is demanding, and without good support from family and friends motivating you to work hard, it would seem impossible.”
Bascom, 42, is finishing his time in the Family Nurse Practitioner master’s program in CSUB’s nursing department, part of the School of Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and Engineering. It’s the next step in a career journey that he started at 27 as an emergency medical technician, or EMT. He worked with Hall Ambulance for about seven years before deciding to become a nurse through Bakersfield College’s registered nursing program. For the last nine years, he’s worked as an ER nurse at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital.
“I worked side-by-side with nurse practitioners and saw the different kinds of processes and treatments given to patients,” Bascom said. “At some point, I realized that I was guessing what the practitioners were planning to do. I then decided that maybe I could do the same job.”
From that realization, Bascom enrolled in CSUB’s accelerated bachelor’s in nursing program in 2017 and applied to its master’s program upon graduating. Although he initially wanted to become a nurse practitioner after working alongside them and believing he could do the job too, the ability to help patients in a new way became another strong motivation for him.
“The FNP program has included many late nights after working my 12-hour shift and staying in the office for many hours at home, completing challenging assignments that included research on certain subjects that I was previously unfamiliar with,” Bascom said. “There have been many new subjects that have come to light that were once unfamiliar to me, especially cholesterol and hypertension control. These subjects are foreign to me since these are chronic health problems compared to the acute patients that I usually deal with daily.”
Bascom’s favorite class in the program has been advanced pathophysiology and pharmacology, which he said were meaty subjects he will be referencing throughout his career. One of his favorite instructors was Dr. Annie Huynh, whom he said regularly motivated him in classes and during her preceptorship at Kern Medical.
“Dwight is a dedicated nurse who has a forward-thinking mindset in today’s challenging healthcare environment,” Dr. Huynh said. “He is a Kern County native that knows the needs of its population. His goals are to serve the Kern community as well as providing support to his family and setting up a roadmap for his four children’s future.”
During his time in the FNP program, Bascom continued working as a nurse in the emergency room, a difficult job in any year but especially in the last year as COVID-19 filled local hospitals with especially ill patients.
“The pandemic initially was scary, but after seeing multiple patients with COVID-19 and wearing proper PPE, including good hand hygiene, and not getting sick, it solidified that it was manageable and preventable,” he said. “What I've learned through this is that obstacles can appear insurmountable but over time, chipping away at it seems to make the mammoth-like obstacle smaller.”
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