My first day back to work after coming back from Cambodia, there were tents in the parking lot behind the emergency room, where people would be triaged, if it came to that. Everyone was wearing masks, and Temps were taken before we could clock in. That is when I heard what was happening with Covid, and that it was a pandemic. I already caught pneumonia from patients far too often,due to my lungs being my weakest area-I already was on inhalers and meds for asthma. I volunteered for a local Moderna study, and thankfully, I got the real vaccines a year before anyone else. There was too much suffering and death, spirits were low, and I wanted to do more, and see people get better, not die. So, after deliberating, and being influenced by a very smart provider teaching medical students, I decided to become a family nurse practitioner. I still worked full-time nights as a nurse, kept that up, plus started learning the cello while going to school from 2020-2023, and doing my clinical rotations during the day. I won’t go through the depression, grief and emotions from those years, but it motivated many of us to leave bedside nursing. My patients for almost 2 of the 3 years were predominantly Covid patients, and it changed to a mix – our new normal, after that. Before starting clinical rotations, my school had our white coat ceremony. Below is our oath. Different from the traditional, but memorable, and heartfelt.