Tsering on her graduation day in 2013
I was born in a small village in Amdo in eastern Tibet. When I was four, my mother passed away, leaving nine children behind for my father to nurture on his own.
At the age of eleven, I went to India, hoping to pursue a college education there. My journey from Tibet to India is one of my most unforgettable memories. I walked on foot from Tibet to India through the Himalayas with other Tibetan refugees. The journey was cold and perilous, and it lasted twenty eight days. Some children lost their toes on the way from frostbite. We ran out of food and were hungry for a couple of days and on one occasion we had to eat the frozen raw meat of a dead yak we found lying on the ice. It was during that trip that I witnessed death for the first time. We were walking, crossing the mountains through a narrow pathway. All of a sudden, I felt a big rock falling off the edge, and then saw a torch rolling down. Later, I realised that the old man who was walking right in front of me had fallen. It was a horrific incident for an eleven year-old child to experience, but the ordeal I went through on this journey did, in some ways, have a positive impact, it made me stronger and increased my tolerance for hardship. My successful journey across the Himalayas has made me believe that a bright future is attainable if I work hard. I still vividly remember arriving in Nepal with swollen feet but with great inner strength and hope.
As I grew up in the Tibetan exile community in Dharamshala, I always dreamed of becoming a nurse. My first notion about nursing was connected to my family’s experience of my mother’s time in hospital – the doctors and nurses there were exceptional and although I was too young to remember much, my family’s gratitude and respect for the medical profession has influenced me a great deal in my choice of career.
In India, I grew up in Tibetan Children’s Village (TCV) where I was admitted as a semi-orphan. TCV is a boarding school for Tibetan children and orphans founded by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I finished high school in 2006 with a full scholarship for college in India and after a few months at Lakshmi Bai College in Delhi University I emigrated to the United States, arriving there in 2006.
TCV was my home away from home, and gave me food, clothes, education and lifetime friends who I will cherish for the rest of my life. TCV prepared me well both academically and personally – most importantly for the easy-going personality that I gained from the TCV community which helps me to find lots of friends wherever I go.
My family was so proud when I told them of my decision to choose nursing as my career in America. I am the only one of nine siblings who has had the opportunity to go to school and receive a college education and this has always motivated me to do well and strive to succeed. I began my career working full time for over three years as a nursing assistant at the State of Wisconsin Care Centre while going to college as a pre-nursing student. At the Centre, I took care of people with mental illnesses and aggressive behaviour, and some with extreme difficulties in communicating. My role requires me to be an advocate for my residents and from this experience I have learned how important it is for an individual to have effective communication skills in the healthcare profession. My role as a CNA has given me experience of working both individually and as part of a team and of to taking on a leadership role by organising leisure activities for the residents, all of which has enabled me to gain many skills, including the ability to make difficult decisions. I have also had the privilege of learning from some great nurses – their professionalism, commitment, and skill inspires me all the time.
Tsering’s family in Winsconsin
Photo: Tsering Lhamo
Tibetans have a unique and diverse cultural background. Using myself as an example, I was born in Tibet, grew up in India, and now live in the United States. I am now very independent and friendly with all kinds of people and this makes me believe that what lies before us are tiny matters compared with what lies within us. I left everything behind – my country, my family, and friends when I was only eleven years old.I survived the journey through the Himalayas with the help of others and my strength of believing in myself to complete the journey. From this hardship, I have learned the importance of teamwork and realised that individual success would not happen without people helping each other.
In the fall of 2011 I was accepted into the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) School of Nursing. My dream of becoming a nurse finally came true. The American standard of education in the school of nursing was a challenge for me and I had to quit my job as a nursing assistant and became a full-time student in the very complex and diverse American society. I graduated from UW-Madison with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) in May 2013 with an excellent academic record and now work as a primary nurse on the Medical Surgical Unitin the Madison Hospital.
My daughter was born in July 2015, completing my small family in America. She is the best thing that has happened in our life and because of the full-hearted support of my husband and great helping hands from others I can consider myself as a successful Tibetan American citizen with a full-time professional job as a nurse, a beautiful daughter to raise and a small happy family living far away from our homeland of Tibet.
However, nursing as a profession in America is always changing, as is the health care system as a whole. America’s primary care physician shortage has meant a call for higher level nursing education to fill the gap. As a primary registered nurse, I feel that I do not have the ability to implement change on a larger, more critical scale in the healthcare system. A doctorate in nursing would enable me to provide better patient care based on evidence-based practice as an educator, a mentor, a leader in the nursing field and practice as a provider. I am now studying at the Doctor of Nursing Practice(DNP) school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and anticipate graduating in 2022 as a Nurse Practitioner.
So, now, I am back in the shoes of a graduate level college student on top of doing a full-time job as a nurse and raising a toddler with my husband. My background has made me determined to gain the best education I can and reaching the next level of education is my dream while living the American dream life.
Living in America as an immigrant is not easy, but I have great support from friends and family. Although I have lived in a foreign country for the last 11 years, I keep my identity as a Tibetan and always introduce myself as Tibetan American. I live the life of a Tibetan inside my house and live an American style life at work.
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