Marivee Hipolito

Student

“I want to get a couple of years nursing experience here. Then I can go back to the Philippines and spread the good news!”

Marivee Hipolito is an artist with a perfectly logical reason for choosing a career in home nursing. “After an operation, people don’t want to be in the hospital. The home is a much better place for them to heal, and so I can come and visit them there. Then I can improvise things for them. I’m good at lettering, and I can write out an older patient’s medication on a big sheet of paper so they can read it. That way it can really be an integration of nursing with art.”

Marivee has already been practising her “art” at four area hospitals. But as an SMC Summer Intern, she found a new area of expression at the Marine Park Children’s Center. “I worked with infants there, and I really enjoyed it because I got very comfortable handling kids. It’s a good ability to have that I wouldn’t have been able to develop without my internship.” Marivee reports that the hours she spent at Marine Park were made very comfortable by a staff that encouraged and accepted her, every step of the way. “They were just very friendly and supportive and approachable,” she says. “And that’s what I look for in a working situation: to have a harmonious relationship with the people around me.”

“The interaction I had at Marine Park with the children and the staff was very helpful to me,” says Marivee. “In nursing, you must work with all kinds of people in all kinds of situations,” she explains. “So all the socialization I experienced over the summer gave me a lot of good experience that, eventually, will help with my nursing—here or back in the Philippines.”

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