Portland Magazine Autumn 2012

David Bessman ’12, firefighter and registered nurse, Scappoose, Oregon “I started off as an engineering major at the University and switched to nursing my junior year, and I wanted to have more experience on the emergency side of medicine. So I volunteered as a firefighter on Sauvie Island, not far from the campus. We had about 100 calls a year, most of them in summer, when the beaches are full. A year later I switched here to Scappoose, where we get 1,500 calls a year. I like the medical side of things, so I’m going to go full time into nursing; I am thinking of working in the Oregon prison system, and perhaps emergency room work after that. I like to be busy. I like the initial assessment part of the work, both as firefighter and nurse – trying to figure out exactly what the problem is, as fast and efficiently as possible. I like the assessment part – is it a stroke, is it a diabetic emergency? This is where it helps to be a nurse – I have more experience with patients and drugs, so I can suggest, for example, that someone taking a diuretic might be a congestive heart failure patient.”