Like many people fresh out of high school, Kym Cochran wasn’t sure about what she wanted to do for a career, but she felt the need to serve her country, so she enlisted in the Army. She was serving as an All-Wheel Mechanic while a friend of hers who enlisted on the same day as her, joined as a medic. One day, he was showing Kym all of the materials in his aid bag, and it struck a chord with her. She began to do some research about combat medic duties and eventually reclassified as a Health Care Specialist. From then on, instead of fixing vehicles, Kym would be helping humans.
After serving from 2006 to 2012, Kym had gained valuable experience working in an Ambulance unit, and also in the ICU and ER at Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany.
“I didn’t fall in love with being a medic right away,” Kym recalls. “But, I remember the moment I fell in love with nursing. It was when I was working in the ER and having that feeling of going home every day knowing I had made a difference in someone’s life that day. And not just one someone, multiple people every day!”
After leaving the Army, Kym went to school for her nursing degree, earning her Bachelor’s Degree in 2018. For Kym, her love of nursing is deeply rooted in who she is as a person. Whether on the job or not, she is always going to be there for someone in need. She has stopped to render aid to car accident victims while they waited for an ambulance to come, at another crash scene, she was able to extract a trapped motorist out of a badly mangled vehicle to get them safely away from leaking gasoline.
“These are just things that I do without thinking,” she explains. “In my mind, we are supposed to care for and love one another. Since I have the tools and training to make a bad situation better, I do what I can until the Police, and the EMT’s arrive.”
Kym always demonstrates a ‘Care More’ attitude and is just as effective in her work setting as she is out in the field. Since earning her nursing degree, she has been a school nurse. Kym has been working for the Buffalo Public Schools since August of this year and recently was honored as their Employee of the Month.
“I love being able to make someone’s day just a little bit better. Being able to ease their pain, or ease their mind and make them feel like somebody cares about them. You can’t say that about a lot of professions. That’s why I love being a nurse!”
search content
subscribe to
the shc blog