Jalal Zahir

Zahir started at Mason Health in 2015. He grew up in Western Washington and graduated from high school in 2005, with a desire to look into nursing. He ended up studying Biology at The Evergreen State College, but when he graduated college in 2009, he was facing student debt in the midst of the Great Recession. At that point, he decided to look back into nursing.

“I had always had an inclination that nursing would be a cool thing to do,” he said. “I already had much of the prerequisite coursework done, so I went straight into South Puget Sound Community College. I got my RN license in 2015.”

Toward the end of nursing school, Zahir completed his preceptorship at Mason General Hospital. He quickly became drawn to the small, rural hospital.

“When I was a student nurse, I had a really good experience here,” he said. “I feel like I got a lot out of it, more than from my other clinical assignments. The people who precepted me, they really took the time to answer my questions.”

What Zahir loves most about working at Mason Health are his co-workers.

“Nursing is a high burnout profession, and I appreciate that I work somewhere where the burnout factor is to a lesser degree,” he said. “By-and-large, we’re a smaller hospital, so it’s more tight-knit. People want to be involved in each other’s lives.”

Zahir lives in Olympia, where he gardens and plays guitar in his free time. He lives with his border collie, Hazel.