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June 22, 2004

Nursing Rant #1

I have only been here a week, but I feel like my head is swimming with all of these things that I can’t stop thinking about. And I don’t just mean the coursework, or the skills lessons, or all of the technical stuff. In this short time I have realized that there is so much about nursing that is so easy to take for granted when you don’t really know what the profession or the role is all about.

I remember when my father said to me (in an attempt to be encouraging when I was rejecting the path of becoming a doctor) that I would be driven crazy by the fact that I would be constantly told what to do, and that it would be impossible for me to be happy in as a nurse because I was smarter than half the doctors out there, and I wouldn’t be able to stand it. But part of what I am coming to understand, and wish others could realize, is that there are so many, varied, complex elements to being a nurse, and it is not at all about simply following doctors’ orders.

It seems that on some level, physicians actually have it easy. Yes, they have to figure out and diagnose what is wrong and decide a best course of treatment, but nurses have to implement that. Nurses have to be with the person (both well and ill) and they must carefully, delicately, thoroughly and caringly, carry out any treatments or other physical and emotional care of a person when that “order” comes down. And this is the hardest thing to do; it is the most nuanced, most important, and it is the thing that goes unnoticed when it is done well.

Once in awhile I have a twinge of “Oh my god, maybe I should have been a doctor,” but when I sit back and think about what it means to be a good nurse, and what it means to nurse, I know there is nothing more that I would rather do, and nothing more important. Nurses are with people at their most vulnerable. Nurses are responsible for making sure they are safe at all times. Nurses are involved with their most intimate processes, both physical and emotional. Nurses are responsible for making sure that people are truly being taken care of, educated, and advocated for in what may be one of the most trying and humiliating experiences of their lives. Even something that appears simple, like moving a patient in their bed, or making sure people are rotated regularly so they don’t develop skin ulcerations, or cleaning a bedpan, is crucial to safety and care, and it takes skill, attention and dedication to do it in such a way that it does go unnoticed – because that means it has been done right.

I read once that the work of a nurse is often unrecognized because of the level of intimacy nurses have with people when they are at their most vulnerable. It is easier for someone coming out of the hospital to praise a doctor for “fixing” them, than to have to be reminded of how vulnerable of an experience it was for them by praising a nurse for cleaning up when they couldn’t stop vomiting, wiping their head and body when they were delirious and feverish, feeding them, instructing and educating them on how to give themselves medications or why certain procedures have to be done, giving them a bath when they couldn’t move, or holding their head when they were crying.

This is nursing. Nursing is intimacy. Nursing is caring for all of a person.

We cannot forget that even the tasks that may appear menial take the greatest of care and have the most significant impact in the experience of a patient. And I get it now…for real. I feel it. Anything that seemed silly or gross or not as “good” as what a doctor does is gone, because it just is not true.

I am proud to be a part of this.

I am honored to be able to truly care for people, and to always have so much to keep learning.

And to the core of me, I believe in it.

I believe in nursing.

Posted by missfitsandstarts at June 22, 2004 09:16 PM

Comments

Yay!

I am so glad that you found your place in life... must feel awesome.

Posted by: frecklegirl at June 23, 2004 02:15 PM