When it comes to career advice, Kenneth R. White has the keys to workplace success.
Dr. White, the MGH Institute’s dean of the School of Nursing, had some simple but profound career tips for a group of University of Richmond health science undergraduates during their recent visit the IHP’s Charlestown campus.
His advice? Find your purpose. Follow your passion. Focus on your strengths. Pay attention to serendipity.
“You’ve got to have some reason for being. What is your purpose?” White asked the group of sophomore health studies students from the Virginia college.
White’s own sense of purpose came as a teenager working in a rural Oklahoma hospital, when he witnessed an elderly patient not having the autonomy to make his own decisions about how he wished to die. “I knew on that day what my purpose was. I knew I had to advocate for patients,” he said, adding that through nursing he discovered the means to do just that.
Since then, White has worked as a palliative care nurse practitioner, professor of nursing and business at the University of Virginia and elsewhere, and a healthcare executive. His knowledge and expertise recently led to him being the first man elected president of the American Academy of Nursing.
“You cannot plan your career. Forget it. It’s a myth,” he told the students, explaining that often “life happens” which can curtail some dreams. “Don’t get caught up comparing yourself to other people. What matters is how you measure up to who you are.”
His message resonated with Kingsley Dwomoh, who said White’s career philosophy will help him through life’s twists and turns.
“Ken said that life is not a straight path, and that was important for me to know,” said the 20-year-old healthcare studies major. “Even though I have a plan, if something happens in life, I now know it’s okay if things change.”
White also advised students to play to their strengths and focus on what they’re good at, saying that true happiness in both career and life comes from doing what one does best. “When you are good at something, you are going to get rewards,” he said, noting it’s also important to pay attention to serendipity — those unexpected but rewarding chances in life that can be beneficial to one’s career and one’s future.
For student Kyle Puchalla, White’s discussion of advocating for patients helped put the IHP on his list of schools to consider once he graduates. “What really struck me was the patient advocacy side of things,” said Puchalla, 19, a biology major, adding that he likes the idea of supporting patients who may be unable to support themselves.
The students also heard about the MGH Institute’s other direct-entry degrees in genetic counseling, occupational therapy, physical therapy, physician assistant studies, and speech-language pathology.
Rick Mayes, chair of the University of Richmond’s Department of Health Studies who has been a long-time collaborator with White, accompanied the students on their trip that also included a virtual tour of the Ether Dome at Massachusetts General Hospital, the room where the first public surgery using anesthetic was demonstrated in 1846. “We feel hearing about nursing and other programs at the Institute will help our undergraduate students find their next chapter,” Dr. Mayes said.
A generation born in the shadow of 9/11 and living through the worst pandemic in more than a century, these students’ next chapter may very well begin in an IHP classroom.