It's Never Too Late to Make Your Own Place in Your Family's Healthcare Tradition

Is healthcare considered "the family business" for you? If so, you already know the pros and cons of that reality.

Sure, the safest place to have a heart attack is at your family reunion, but there also are all those expectations — be at the top of your class, get a stellar entrance exam score, make the right connections and follow the yellow brick road to medical / dental / pharmacy / OT / PT / etc. school, after which, of course, you take your rightful place in the family practice.

It sounds good in theory, but when the rubber hits the road (i.e., you take college-level organic chemistry), you start to worry that those medically inclined smarts you inherited may not be enough to get you through. 

So, you try something else first. You want to prove you can make it on your own, in a pursuit that has nothing to do with any of your relatives.

Maybe you go into the workforce and bounce between jobs, looking for something that you can be passionate about. Maybe you even get a bachelor's degree in a non-medical subject area.

Then one day, you realize that nothing makes you as happy as improving the health and well-being of others.

And once you have that settled, the rest of the plan for your future gets a lot clearer.

Yes, you’re a little hesitant to go back to school, but you shouldn't let that get in your way.

Why? Because everyday we help students with the same fears and dreams make their own paths to becoming licensed practitioners.

Maurice “Mo” Gregory III is one of those students. 

Mo grew up helping out in his father’s medical practice. But self-doubt kept Mo from following in his father's footsteps.

He got his undergraduate degree in psychology and then worked in a bunch of different retail jobs. But he never felt fulfilled.

“My life path has been pretty winding for what I wanted to do,” Mo said. “And I realized that kind of as time went on that I was most happy when I was working in the medical field.”

The faculty in the accelerated nursing program at NMC provided Mo the support and encouragement he needed to make it through to graduation.

Today, Mo is continuing to follow his passion by pursuing a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree with hopes of eventually joining his father’s practice.

Watch as Mo shares how his future began with discovering his why.

Editor’s note: This blog post is the last in a series of six student stories and videos that highlight some reasons why our students chose NMC.