Readers' Recommendations
Preface to the Revised Edition

Prologue: Step by step towards the dream, from Jeju to New York

Part 1: The Dreaming Nursing Student
Are you giving up on attending this university?
Write my dreams in the Death Note
My hobby, playing New Yorker
The route has been changed
The memory of the sharp first injection
The trainee isn't even supposed to sit down?
The first American nurse I met
Let's go pick the stars in the sky
The Psychology of Strong Goals
You have been accepted to Samsung Seoul Hospital.
+ Lee Yeon's Secret Tip: Interview Know-How
+ Lee Yeon's Tip: Make the most of your waiting period

Part 2 The Joys and Sorrows of the New
The trainee is hungry
A bit shaky from the start, but fighting!
+ Lee Yeon's Honey Tip: Investment
New is the neighborhood book
+ Lee Yeon's Tip: Becoming a Smart Newbie
Laughing at the patient, crying at the patient
The nurse is not my older sister
Endurance skills are also needed
Have your own hobby
+ Lee Yeon's Tips: Creating a Career Plan
I need to become a better nurse
Doctors and nurses, a love-hate relationship
The biggest decision of my life: quitting my job
+ Lee Yeon's Tips: Preparing to Quit Your Job

Part 3 Towards a wider world
Challenge, Fashion Model!
Returning as an operating room nurse
Between limits and obsession
+ Lee Yeon's Honey Tip: Health Management
Another Opportunity, US Army Nurse
Give your English conversation wings
The turtle is never late
+ Lee Yeon's Tips: NCLEX-RN
California man, Jeju Island woman
A Different Challenge: Dreaming of Becoming a Flight Attendant
To New York, the city of dreams

Part 4 I am a nurse in New York
New York, still New York
+ Lee Yeon's Tips: Career Exploration
A drama of emotion and twists
Exciting orientation
American hospitals I've experienced
A nurse who doesn't bow her head
The ups and downs of a foreign nurse
Let's live like a real New Yorker

Epilogue In search of a new dream

Additional Notes
Thanks to
Plus Page Stories from a Current Nurse

Zero specs, nursing student from local vocational college
From Samsung Seoul Hospital to entering a large New York hospital

Wannabe students who dream of becoming nurses
Kim Lee-yeon's first essay, Recover, is published in a special edition.

*2020 Seoul International Book Fair Recover "Again, This Book" Selection
*2016 Sejong Book Literature Sharing Selection

“I was a high school student who had been living without a care in the world, and after reading this book, my heart raced for the first time and I felt like I had something I wanted to do.”
"This book grabbed me by the collar and pulled me along, never letting me lose my dream of becoming a nurse! I kept it in my study room and read it whenever I felt like studying."
“A book that helped me create my dreams when I was a nursing student, and helped me nurture my dreams after becoming a nurse.
“Even in the midst of a difficult hospital life, this book is one that will help you return to your original intentions and regain your passion when you open the bookshelf again!”
-From readers' recommendations

Nurse Kim Ri-yeon's "I'm Glad I'm a Nurse," which gave dreams and hope to countless nursing students, has returned in a revised edition after five years of publication.
This book, a growth essay that covers the journey from a local junior college nursing student to Samsung Seoul Hospital and then to a major New York hospital, contains the author's own story of breaking the conventional image of a nurse, symbolized by Nightingale, and becoming a recognized nurse by being honest about her desires and steadily building her skills as a nurse.
In addition to the enthusiastic support of readers who want to become nurses, the book is also being recommended by trusted organizations and individuals, such as being selected as a Sejong Book Literature Sharing book, so it is widely read by a wide range of readers.
Let's meet Nurse Kim Ri-yeon, who started out as a young nurse with dreams and has now become a role model for countless nursing students, in her honest and lively essay, "I'm Glad I'm a Nurse," now in a newly revised edition.

A high school girl who just wanted to be a New Yorker.
A nursing student who hated the world that ignored junior college students.
A new nurse who studied hard to escape the hospital…
A 100% relatable growth story of a young nurse with many dreams and ambitions.

Kim Ri-yeon, a high school student from Jeju Island, hated studying but was good at English, and had no specific aspirations but was certain about the city she wanted to live in.
She happened to come across information about nursing programs just before entering college, and decided to give up on going to a four-year university and choose nursing at a junior college.
It is because of my desire to become a professional nurse and go to New York.
However, the cold gaze of this society towards vocational college students leaves a scratch on the hearts of young nursing students.
But that doesn't mean we can just sit back.
Nursing student Kim Ri-yeon, on the other hand, clenches her fists and charges into the world, determined to "succeed brilliantly with zero qualifications and kick this first-class, addictive society to the curb."
She joined Samsung Seoul Hospital, which was like a 'star in the sky' for local junior college students, and after two years, she quit the large hospital and knocked on the door of the glittering world of fashion modeling. She then entered Samsung Seoul Hospital again and struggled for two years as a surgical assistant nurse, and in the meantime, she studied hard and sought to go to the United States.
And finally, she entered New York, the city she had always dreamed of, and began her career as a nurse in the U.S. as an oncology ward nurse at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in 2013.
And now, in 2020, she is working as an oncology prescription confirmation nurse at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, one of the best hospitals in the United States, while attending graduate school at Columbia University, an Ivy League school, and balancing work and studies.
"I'm Glad I'm a Nurse" is an essay that honestly and cheerfully unfolds the journey of a somewhat special, yet in some ways, an extremely ordinary young nurse, who has steadily walked towards her dream, from a nursing student who listened with trembling heart to a lecture by a nurse from the United States, to now excitedly adding the modifier "American nurse" to her own name.
The author wrote this book for the countless nurses and nursing students who, even at this very moment, are crying and laughing like their former selves, and moving forward toward their dreams.
The author writes about the joys and sorrows of being a novice nurse in real life, as well as the various frustrations and triumphs she experienced both inside and outside the hospital, without any embellishment or pretense, and in a friendly, unvarnished way.


Seniors' bullying, the pressure of three shifts, and patients giving and receiving medicine... Nurses are suffering.
Fashion model, flight attendant, actor, operating room assistant, and even a US military hospital... Is challenging your hobby?!

Part 1 [Dreaming Nursing Student] tells the story of a reckless nursing student who chose nursing as her career with the sole dream of going to America and living there, and as she adapts to school life and goes through hospital training, she develops her vision and ambition as a nurse.

Part 2 [The Joys and Sorrows of a Newcomer] tells the frank story of a fresh new nurse who came to Seoul with high hopes after being accepted to the Samsung Seoul Hospital she had longed for, only to be turned into a zombie due to the busy work schedule, three-shift work, and the bullying of her seniors. It also guides you into the world of hospital nurses who find meaning in their work even in harsh environments and learn about life from patients.
Part 3 [Into a Wider World] is a story of the author's ups and downs, both inside and outside of Samsung Hospital, after leaving the hospital.
A chance photo of a 'street fashion' taken on the street led her to the world of fashion modeling. She wanted to work in the operating room she had always dreamed of, so she re-entered Samsung Hospital and gained two more years of experience as an SA. While looking to go to the United States, she met a US military nursing officer and attempted to join a US military hospital.
Meanwhile, I am putting in effort to speak English at a native level, through activities such as participating in English clubs and volunteering with foreigners.

In Part 4, [I am a Nurse in New York], the author finally enters the city of her dreams, New York, and goes through many twists and turns, including shedding tears because of a scammer posing as a job agent, before finally getting a job at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital, a large hospital in New York. The story continues in an interesting way with the reality of the American medical field, which is quite different from that of Korea, and the new experiences she experiences as a foreign nurse.

This revised edition features a preface and appendix, reflecting on the author's five-year journey from an unknown nurse to a role model for many nursing students.
The interview corner at the end of the book, ‘Stories from Current Nurses,’ has also been supplemented with newly updated content.
Through the honest stories of senior nurses working in various fields, you will be able to get a more colorful look at the various aspects of life as a nurse.


To live the life you truly want
To the youth who hesitate before a new challenge

Nursing is a profession with a high employment rate and is becoming increasingly popular.
However, the reality is that the turnover rate of new nurses is also very high.
The infamous burnout culture, the grueling work that likely turns young people into walking general hospitals, the patients who treat doctors with respect as “sir” but treat nurses rudely, calling them “here, there”…
How can nurses, while enduring all these hardships, find meaning in their work, pursue personal happiness, and unleash their inner potential? The author, from the perspective of a novice nurse, recounts her journey, offering empathy, encouragement, and her own expertise to readers.

This book, which fully captures the passionate challenges of a young person in their 20s and the bittersweet growth of a nurse, will not only inspire new and prospective nurses who are excitedly envisioning their future as nurses, but also rekindle dreams and passion in experienced nurses who are feeling worn out from going back and forth between home and the hospital, like a hamster on a wheel.
Not only nurses, but also any young person hesitating before a new challenge to live the life they truly desire will be able to receive fresh inspiration from the author's boundless positive energy and will to take on challenges.