A Mentor, Colleague, and Friend I will never forget my first day of clinical in B249. I was terrified, sure that everyone else belonged and equally sure that I didn’t, I would be “found out”, and promptly shown the door. I found out that Madonna Wilson was going to be my clinical instructor for this class and friend who are two semesters ahead of me assured me that I would learn a lot, love working with Madonna, and she would take really good care of us. Her friendly smile and good sense of humor put me at ease right away. From the start, although she made it clear that the standards for the course were high, she emphasized that she was here to help us to do the best job possible. What I think sets her apart is the extra time she put into our clinical experience. We were asked to come in on Sunday, the day before clinical to gather information on our patient such as the diagnosis, past history, and medications. Giving up Sundays wasn’t only a sacrifice on our part, but also hers. She gave up time on Sundays to go through charts and make assignments so that we would have plenty of time to research the medications, pathophysiology, and to plan our approach to our patient. In other words, she put the needs of the patient first and that’s what nursing is all about.