National Nursing Week: Holistic learning shaping Andrew Barrett's career path

To celebrate National Nursing Week—which began on May 10—the Ryerson Rams will be featuring current and former student-athletes who are majoring in or working in nursing. Today's spotlight highlights Andrew Barrett, a current men's soccer player who just completed his third year in the Ryerson Nursing program.

Andrew Barrett is currently one of only four Ryerson student-athletes to be enrolled in the nursing program, one likely reason being the time consumption the program requires.

When speaking on the perceived challenges of Ryerson Nursing, Barrett focused less on the time and effort the program requires, but more so certain elements that would trouble any student, varsity athlete or not.

"I think nursing school is seen as hard not because it is conceptually difficult with content matter, but in addition to a very high workload, we actually have to be in hospitals," said Barrett. "So compared to a chemistry or engineering major, a nursing student has a real life responsibility to take care of patients."

Barrett described multiple experiences in his first-year placement where he had several ethically challenging situations and uncomfortable scenarios that involve nuance and certain complexities that not many students studying theoretical science subjects would experience.

He concluded that the long, strenuous hours along with these clinical experiences are what makes the nursing program seen as challenging.

^{The Rams midfielder played the 2019 season while attending school and doing his placement at Toronto Western Hospital in the general surgery unit.}

Barrett had nothing but good things to say about his last few placements, expressing, "The education was phenomenal. The practical and theoretical experience synchronized almost perfectly. What we would learn in the textbook, was exactly what we would see at the hospital."

As the only current male Rams varsity athlete in the program, and nursing being generally known as a predominantly female industry, Barrett did not let that affect his decision in the slightest leading up to his enrollment, and is outspoken about his male privilege in the industry.

"I would even argue that men are privileged in the nursing space," said Barrett. "Sometimes patients see a male nurse and maybe assume the male nurse knows more or is almost like a doctor."

Barrett shared that he chose the nursing program because he is "really drawn to healthcare" and has a "natural inclination for it."

He went on to share that, "A lot of Black people, if they go into healthcare, they go into nursing...so initially, I thought the most proximal thing was nursing. Now I want to go to medical school, but in the past, the idea of being a physician wasn't even on my radar."

Barrett expressed that he intends on pursuing medical school and hopefully becoming a gastroenterologist.

"When I was a baby I had pyloric stenosis, that was a gastroenterological disease, and so for me I would like to dive into mastering that and helping those with those types of ailments," said Barrett.

When asked to expand on his desire to pursue medical school, Barrett expressed, "I'm honestly obsessed with anatomy, physiology, and the art of mastery. In the nursing program, you get a taste of anatomy and all of those medical subjects, but it also focuses a lot on clinical knowledge in the workplace."

Despite the nursing program not lining up precisely with his future goals, Barrett credited the nursing program and said that even if he were to do it all again and knew he wanted to become a physician from the start, he still would have chosen Ryerson Nursing as his undergraduate program.

"I really feel like some of the things we learn in nursing surrounding empathy, communicating with people and learning how to treat a person on all aspects of their being, not just as a body with a disease, is something I feel like nursing really focuses on," Barrett added.

Barrett concluded his words of appreciation for the program by saying, "I think Ryerson Nursing has done an amazing job at allowing me to learn about phenomenology, critical social theory and critical race theory, which has caused me to look at things in a more holistic way and is something that has always been inside me. I don't think these are topics I would have learned about if I were pursuing a chemistry or biology degree. I would have had the science of things down...but the social aspect that makes up who we are would have been missing.

"I would not have changed my decision for the world."

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Players Mentioned

Andrew Barrett: MF; 5' 8"; 3

Players Mentioned

Andrew Barrett
: 5' 8"; 3
: MF