Gifted Spotlight: Kenyatta Poe

Gifted Healthcare believes all nurses are heroes. Each month, we tell an inspiring story of a Gifted RN for our Gifted Spotlight feature.

Today’s spotlight shines on Kenyatta Poe, a Gifted Healthcare travel nurse who has spent most of his life engaged with the study of medicine and caretaking. In fact, Kenyatta’s nursing journey has recently taken him to medical school, where he is studying to become a doctor!

Read on to learn about Kenyatta’s fantastic nursing journey, and his dedication to continual improvement as a healthcare professional.

Early Life

Kenyatta Poe was born in Jackson, Mississippi. During his childhood, one experience at the doctor’s office sparked an interest in becoming a caretaker.

“When I was about 11 years old, I had doctor’s appointment and was terrified to go there,” Kenyatta said. “When I got there, the doctor took away all of my fears. He made me feel really comfortable – I think I got a lollipop.”

This feeling of comfort inspired Kenyatta to make others feel the same one day.

“I wanted to be like that guy,” he said. “Someone who makes people feel safe and calm. And it just grew from there.”

Nursing School & Education

After high school, Kenyatta wanted to learn more about medicine, and studied pre-med at Tougaloo College in Mississippi. He then went to graduate school at Mississippi College.

Rather than embark on the long journey of becoming a doctor right away, Kenyatta decided to go to nursing school. While in nursing school, he excelled in the study of cardiology, and became a cardiac nurse when he graduated in 2015.

While he was in nursing school, Kenyatta worked as a shoe salesman. He believes this job informed his ability to speak to his patients and make them feel at ease.

“My patients enjoy my conversations – I try to make them laugh, and to get a feel for what they really need,” he said.

Traveling with Gifted Healthcare

Kenyatta originally heard about Gifted Healthcare from a coworker.

“During a shift change, I said I was considering travel nursing,” Kenyatta said. “She recommended Gifted Healthcare right away, and I trusted her judgment, so I didn’t look for travel nursing jobs through anyone else.”

“I appreciate Gifted Healthcare for giving me the opportunity to improve my resume,” said Kenyatta. “My recruiter always quickly responded to all of my questions. She was always on top of little things, and that made me really appreciate her.”

Becoming a Doctor

When we spoke to Kenyatta, he had just finished his first day of classes in medical school at University of Mississippi Medical Center. He had just been accepted about two weeks before his first day.

“I’m feeling all of the emotions you can feel right now, because everything happened so quickly,” Kenyatta said.

It’s rare that one finds a doctor that has experience on both sides of caregiving, as a physician and a nurse. We asked Kenyatta how his clinical education as a nurse has impacted his journey in med school so far:

“I think that being a nurse will help me be a better doctor,” he said. “In nursing school, I learned a lot about therapeutic communication. I’ve learned and experienced so much, and I think it will help me take care of my patients a little bit better.”

Moving Forward & Philosophy of Care

Any time we spotlight a Gifted RN, we always ask them to describe the qualities of the ideal nurse. Each nurse must draw from an intensely personal and unique set of experiences to create their own philosophy of care.

Kenyatta gave an example of “the ideal nurse” with us by sharing his experiences observing a special coworker:

“An ideal nurse empathizes with their patients, goes the extra distance. A coworker of mine always amazes me with her level of care; you really see that she cares about the patient and the family of the patient. Overall, she just has a good spirit.”

As for Kenyatta’s future plans, he left us with a simple but very powerful statement:

“I think that being a nurse will help me be a better doctor. I hope to make all nurses proud.”

We are honored to have such a hardworking, caring individual on the Gifted Team. Kenyatta plans to continue travel nursing with Gifted during his breaks from medical school.

We wish him the very best of luck, and hope that he achieves his dream of making all nurses proud as a cardiologist!