Lucas Min is not shy about caring for people and all kinds of music.
Your first full-time job at New York University Abu Dhabi is as housing manager during the dark, early days of COVID. Quarantine protocols have begun a forced isolation that only heightens college students’ anxieties—and your own.
As that guy, Lucas Min could do little beyond calling the Middle East equivalent of 911 to get help when a student suffered a panic attack and hyperventilated—only to witness a dismissive EMT inform the traumatized student that she was acting like a baby.
It was too much. Having fulfilled a three-year contract in Abu Dhabi, Min decided to go home to Southern California and think about a better way to make a difference in the world. If that meant yet another career turn, away from environmental science (bachelor’s degree from California’s University of Redlands) and higher ed (master’s in educational leadership from Montclair State University in New Jersey), so be it. He would no longer stand by and watch people suffer.
The memory guides Min’s efforts and activities at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing (JHSON)—especially in clinicals—where the MSN (Entry into Nursing) program is preparing him to be the care provider who he wishes had showed up in Abu Dhabi.
“I really try my best to listen to my patients and then empathize and understand from their perspectives,” Min explains of the “human-to-human” nurse-patient dynamic that he seeks. “I would never say that I understand what they’re going through, because I am not them. I’ve never been in that place.” It takes practice, self-awareness, and humility. But when this approach works, Min realizes that he’s found his happy place. “I specifically remember from my first semester, when I was done with the vital signs and everything, the patient says to me, ‘I need to talk to your clinical instructor.’ And it was that moment of, ‘Oh my god, red alert! What did I do wrong?’ I’m pacing outside the room. My clinical instructor comes out and just has the biggest smile.”
The patient had raved about Min’s care, explaining that he had felt seen and genuinely cared about by the nursing student. In a later clinical session, another patient stopped just shy of proposing marriage.
“I really try my best to listen to my patients and then empathize and understand from their perspectives.”
It’s all music to his ears. Or more music, anyway. A love of K-Pop is sort of a birthright for Min, who left his native South Korea at age 10 for Southern California. The unapologetically upbeat band TWICE tops his hit list. But he’s always seeking new musical experiences in various genres, scouring tour dates for a chance to witness a new group that might enrich him.
Meantime, Min has a gig where the music comes to him—as graduate hall director at the Peabody Institute, the music-education wing of Johns Hopkins University. “I’m the only non-music student who lives and eats with the Peabody students,” he says. Min tried his hand(s) at piano as a youngster. They refused to cooperate. The rest of his being can’t get enough.
“This semester is really exciting because my RAs will be doing their junior or senior recitals, so I’m excited to be able to go and support them. As part of the community, I have the luxury of going and listening to the wonderful things Peabody puts on.”
Min credits many of his lucky breaks—including the Peabody job, which helps with JHU tuition—to networking. For an introvert by nature, that’s really saying something. And so Min does, out loud, to anyone who wants or needs to hear it. “Networking is absolutely the best things people can do.”
“In undergrad, I recognized that I didn’t really grow up having or sharing my own opinion. I kept it to myself. I noticed that doesn’t really get me anywhere,” Min explains. “I’m still working on it. I have a hard time making small talk. It was just very hard for me to connect with people.”
Tired of holding himself back, “I applied to be an RA.” The position forced Min to run meetings, be engaged and talk to people, and be a leader. It was difficult. “I had a horrible anxiety about speaking in front of people, so I forced myself,” making presentations at regional, national, and international conferences in the higher education realm. “Those were the moments when I really pushed myself to be out there, speaking with people from many different parts of the world.”
The reward was his global network, which keeps growing … even beyond this earthly realm.
“I’m a huge gamer,” Min says of his love for League of Legends, an online battle game in which he enlists and competes with friends from all the way back in high school. “As an introvert, that’s a perfect way to stay home, not talk about nursing, not talk about school, and be with people who are not here in Baltimore.”
‘Plethora of opportunities’
Apart from those mini-breaks, Min, who will join the staff of the Johns Hopkins Hospital emergency department after May graduation, is grateful that he is in Baltimore.
“Honestly, I am so happy and thankful that I chose the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing MSN over other programs. It’s just the plethora of opportunities outside of academia.” He mentions honors groups and various clubs as well as his positions with the Student Senate and as a student nurse at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. “Faculty members are always checking in on you. ‘How are you doing? How are we doing? Are you taking care of yourself?’ It speaks volumes about what their priorities are: the student body rather than just numbers. I have some friends who are going through other programs right now—all they’re talking about, all of their focus is just getting a certain grade for their classes. There’s nothing outside of that, which is very unfortunate.”
JHSON, by comparison, “really encompasses the holistic growth within the student. Which I appreciate because yes, at the end of the day, we’re all trying to become nurses. We are going to be knowledgeable. But if we can’t connect with our patients through different avenues, then what are we doing? We’re treating them transactionally.” ◼