Filipinos make up a large portion of the nursing field. There are so many memes about this. I even remember seeing a billboard promoting diversity, except the doctor was Caucasian, and all the nurses were Filipino (they even had the same nose as me).

Personally, I didn’t grow up with a big Filipino community, besides my family. I didn’t even know what a Filipino was. In kindergarten, there were only two races in my mind: white and Chinese (thanks to Jackie Chan). I knew my parents didn’t speak English at home, and I didn’t look like my peers. Naturally, I thought I was Chinese. I remember being really confused about why my eyes didn’t match other Chinese people. Obviously, I know better now. Still, I never thought I’d fulfill the “Filipino nurse” stereotype, until I graduated with my Bachelor’s in Nursing.

In February 2020, I started working as an ICU nurse, only to have the COVID-19 pandemic hit a month later. If you didn’t already know, the ICU is where you get the sickest patients—those on ventilators, code blues, and, in my experience, the pandemic hysteria on top of that. That was my world for three and a half years. While working, I noticed that many of my nursing colleagues were Filipino, but I rarely saw Filipino physicians. It wasn’t a problem, nor did my race ever affect my work—it was just something I observed.

Beyond the stereotype, one of the biggest challenges I faced was navigating the medical hierarchy. It’s hard to cover every aspect of my profession in a single article, but one thing you should know is that a nurse is not “just a nurse.” I went through a nurse residency program for a year after graduation. Yes, nurses have residency programs! I had to study the pathophysiology and pharmacology of complex diseases to ensure that what physicians ordered was safe for the patient. Nurses are the last line of defense before harm reaches a patient, among many other responsibilities.

Finally, I want to talk about my team. There were a lot of sad and frustrating moments in my career, but my team was always there for me. All of my colleagues—the nurses, therapy teams, techs, residents, and attendings— even signed my iconic white vest during my last week of work. These were doctors I admired, who advocated for both their patients and their team members. They showed me the beauty and humanity in medicine, despite everything. My vest now hangs near my bed to remind me of why I chose, and continue to choose, this path in medicine.

In the end, I find it funny how I fulfilled the Filipino nurse stereotype, and yet was crazy enough to pursue my dream of becoming a physician. By sharing my story, I hope to give my cultural roots and the nursing profession the justice they deserve.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you learned something new today.

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