A Dedication to a Clinical Advisor

Published Dec 15, 2006

53 Posts

Specializes in hospice.

Below is an email to my fundamental clinical advisor I sent in May of this year. I just finished my 2nd semester of an ADN program. Back then we had clinicals at a nursing home in the area. Though I knew I wanted to do this , the duties we're tough, and I wondered if I was cut out for it. I was blessed to have this instructor, an NP, with a heart of gold. I post this for current instructors and wannabes. Everything you do effects your students, whether it is by the book or not. She made me realise that I was in the right field and gave me the confidence to go on.

Something you did for me........

I think it was the first or second day of clinicals. I was stressed and behind..care plans due thursday, test on wednesday, wondering when I would get the chance to chart. One thing our group did was help each other and I was either going to help or coming from helping or going to look for help..probably that one. I was in the North hallway and a patch of white caught my eye coming from the courtyard of the nursing home. I stopped and saw you, flanked by 3 or 4 students in white with the quadraplegic resident on her shower gurney...what was going on ?!!

I stepped out the door in time to see you put a fresh cut flower in her hand and was blessed to see the beautiful smile on her face! What a picture! If I had had a camera I would have taken the picture and HIPPA be damned! I went from changing briefs to seeing that! I didn't stay long, I was behind, one thing i'm good at, but it stayed with me. That picture happened again the next clinical day, and again I was walking down the same hall at the same time. I didn't have to go outside this time because I knew what was going on but I did watch again and this time I decided it should be a painting. But i just stood there with a stupid smile on my face .. Joyce, most of the time we just think things in our head but on rare occasions we say things in our heads things. This time it hit me .."This is what its all about"

I saw that a picture a few more times after that; and I'd always stop and watch. I never talked about it with anyone else, but I know if they had a heart and a brain it did the same thing for them. I cared more, about the residents and each other in the group...

The memories are fading from clinicals. I remember the residents I was assigned but not the order. I couldn't tell you how many brief changes I had, and by the time I start clinicals this semester the names will start to fade. a few years from now I won't remember one name only faces. Whether I pass or not though, ten years from now if I ever think back on the first semester, that picture is what I will always remember.

That was not in any teaching plan. That came from the heart.You thought you only put a smile on an elderly quadraplegics face but you opened my eyes. You dropped a pebble in a pond and forgot about the ripples...

Oh.. I named that painting in my mind..."The Angel in the Courtyard"

Thanks again for everything

Paul