Everything I Know About Life, I Learned From Nursing

I've learned that nursing is a great metaphor for life. It's both rewarding and frustrating, utterly fascinating at times and dull as tombs at others; it's funny, sad, beautiful, ugly, dramatic, unglamorous...and sometimes it outright stinks. Nurses General Nursing Article

Updated: Oct 4, 2020 Published Mar 13, 2009

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide

VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

You are reading page 2 of Everything I Know About Life, I Learned From Nursing

marvicverdijo

1 Post

Mar 25, 2009

:yeahthat: proud to be nurse

farmlady

11 Posts

Mar 25, 2009

When they increase your patient load to 40 or 52, all bets are off!

And worse, when they increase my CNA's load to 19, all bets are also off.

This is the perfect stew to cause tempers to boil, and staff to get angry with each other and lose compassion for each other. And nursing needs MORE compassion, not less.

This environment causes the individual to focus on self because that's all it can do. For sanity's sake. But I think it became like the Milgram Experiment. And I didn't want to be a part of the cruelty anymore.

I had to get out of the above place. It just wasn't human or humane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment http://home.swbell.net/revscat/perilsOfObedience.html

amchica06

1 Post

Specializes in Med-Surg/Neuro/Renal/Float Pool.

Mar 25, 2009

I'm inspired by this...I've been an NA for two years and am currently in nursing school. I wish every nurse I encountered had this philosophy on nursing and life in general. Not for my sake, but for the patient's.

nurse-lioness

3 Posts

Apr 3, 2009

I loved this article, a "real laugh out loud!." It also made me cry, then laugh again. Thanks for sharing this. You're right we do learn so much of life in Nursing!