How a graduating student's education and experiences in the BYU Nursing program prepared him to be "in the right place at the right time."
“Midway down our first run, I saw this gentleman in front of me collapse,” Jake Loutensock recalled of his first ski trip this winter. “When I came up to him, he was face down in the snow with a puddle of blood around his head.”
Without hesitation, Loutensock’s nursing instincts took over. Unsure if the man had a pulse or was breathing, he began CPR immediately. Soon, another skier who was a doctor joined in. After minutes of exhausting effort, they finally felt a strong pulse return just as the ski patrol arrived with their medical equipment.
Loutensock was grateful to receive a call from the ski patrol manager later that evening confirming that the man was in stable condition.
"Because of BYU, I feel that I'm prepared to act as Christ would and truly exemplify the Healer's art."
“There's a big contrast between being in school or being in the hospital and learning skills, versus actually pulling them out of thin air and implementing them at the right time,” said Loutensock, a nursing major at BYU.
Another experience that helped reinforce his choice to pursue a nursing degree was when he was holding a sick baby in the neonatal intensive care unit during a clinical rotation.
As he held the baby, he felt the love of Jesus Christ and better understood the “worth of every soul.”
“As a student, I walked into every hospital room knowing that I had Christ on my side and He cares about each individual,” Loutensock said. “Therefore, I can be an instrument in His hands to heal and to treat that person with Christlike love.”
Because of his own time spent in the hospital in critical condition, this experience deeply impacted Loutensock.
After graduation, he is looking forward to implementing what he’s learned at BYU in his next step at the Mayo Clinic as a future nurse, husband and father.
“I've loved my time here,” Loutensock said. “I’m excited to graduate and to be moving on, but these years hold a very sacred space in my life. Because of BYU, I feel that I’m prepared to act as Christ would and truly exemplify the Healers art.”
