A Typical Day of Nurse

[Meltem McHugh]

A Typical Day of a Nurse

As a part of my JMU RN-to-BSN program ‘Tell the World ‘Assignment, I will tell about my journey as a new graduate nurse and typical day of a nurse.  Nursing was my 2nd degree. Personally, I find nursing to be a calling - like most medical professions. Now, I am working as a nurse resident at the pulmonary/GI unit of Mayo Clinic Jacksonville for almost six months. I believe Med/surg nursing offers the ideal foundation for me to build critical skills for my future goal to be a critical care nurse practitioner.

Starting from the first day of career my philosophy is that nurses have a responsibility to provide quality, safe and compassionate patient care customized according to patients’ specific needs. I am fortunate to have a workplace that adopts a ‘patient comes first’ policy which helps me to provide best optimal care for my patients. Nursing is a challenging yet rewarding career. It requires more than carrying out routine tasks of the profession. Nurses should have critical thinking skills, creativity, innovation, and communication skills.

A typical day of me starts with getting report from the night shift, assessing patients thoroughly, passing morning medications, checking blood glucose, and managing sliding-scale insulin in a timely manner. Safe and efficient care of the patients require collaboration with patient’s treatment team including doctors, residents, NP and PA’s, case managers, nurse technicians, PT, OT, and family members. Some days turn out really overwhelming with multi-tasking, passing meds, noncompliant patients, giving updates to family members, phone calls, charting, blood glucose checks before meals, calling doctors, managing new orders, new admissions, and complicated discharges. But nursing is much more than all these basic tasks of the profession. At the core, nurses should have patience, compassion, kindness, and the ability of practicing empathy to better understand the feelings of patients. Teamwork is essential to complete the tasks of the day. Whenever I see other nurses feels overwhelmed, I am always there for help as they are there for me.

When it is time to give report to night shift, I have sigh of relief and smile. Even at the end of most exhausting days, the feeling of accomplishment lets me forget about how the day was so busy and all the muscle sores I have. Helping vulnerable people and making a difference in lives is eternal. I can’t imagine myself in any other profession.