Sarah Rospenda is an outpatient nurse at Oaklawn’s South Bend campus. She first came to Oaklawn as a nursing student on a clinical rotation at the inpatient hospital in Goshen.
“Starting a psych rotation can be intimidating because you don’t know what to expect. I was so pleasantly surprised with the environment.”
“Starting a psych rotation can be intimidating because you don’t know what to expect,” she said. “I was so pleasantly surprised with the environment: how much respect and dignity the patients were treated with, how the nurses developed relationships with the patients and how much progress the patients made before they left.”
She joined the inpatient unit after graduation, eventually transferring to an outpatient position in South Bend because it was closer to home. A typical day now is spent filling prescription refills, fielding phone calls, answering questions about symptoms or medications and consulting with Oaklawn psychiatrists.
Sarah has always been drawn to the medical field. Nursing was a good fit for her because she enjoys building relationships with patients, and she was afraid she might not be able to do that as a doctor. But working alongside Oaklawn’s psychiatrists has shown her that’s not the case. So she’s currently attending school for Advanced Practice Nursing.
“Now I’m looking forward to being able to develop relationships with my own patients,” she says.