Speaker: Tyler Gaedecke, Leadership Council Member
Tyler Gaedecke: Hi, my name is Tyler Gaedecke. I'm a second-year PhD student at Columbia University School of Nursing.
What drew you to nursing?
Tyler Gaedecke: I was originally drawn to nursing because I wanted a profession that blended both my interest in science and in people. And I had thought about other professions, like teaching or medicine or other medical professions, but I hadn't really thought about nursing. And I remember in my first year dorm in college, I was talking about this with some friends, you know, we're all having these like career/life crises about like what are we going to do with ourselves? And one of them heard me saying all this and said, well, have, have you thought about nursing school? Have you thought about being a nurse? And no one had ever said that to me before. And I looked into applying to transfer into my university's nursing school for undergrad and the rest is history.
What would you like to do once you have completed your degree?
Tyler Gaedecke: folks. I have a particular focus on sexual and gender minorities, especially transgender and gender diverse individuals. And for me, my career plans once I've completed my PhD are to go on for further training to become an independent nurse scientist and a tenure track faculty member at a research intensive nursing school so that I can build a career mentoring nurses, but also doing work that impacts policy impacts health systems and creates transformational change for the communities that need it most.
If you could eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Tyler Gaedecke: get old to me after a minute. What has never gotten old my entire life is cereal. There are so many different kinds. I mean, definitely Captain Crunch, shredded wheat, those are up there. Those are incredible. Reese's puffs, anybody? But I, you could just have that for any meal of the day and breakfast, snack, dessert, dessert is a meal, and you can have it for that meal. I think that it's probably the best food ever and it's the most reliable, most varied. I could eat it forever.
