Love Being a Nurse: 33 Years and Going Strong

jeastridge, BSN, RN

I pushed my computer top down hearing the satisfying "click" as a sign of the end of my work day. I moved around the counter in the kitchen and fixed a hot cup of tea, pausing to stir in a bit of honey, before taking that first sip. Leaning against the counter, I thought back over my day, working as a Parish Nurse in the morning and making hospice visits for a local hospice company in the afternoon. I smiled thinking how blessed I am to be able to work two jobs and have them blend together well.

I thought back over the years and remembered my very first days as a young nurse at an inner city hospital where I was hired to work nights on pediatrics. Even now, all these years later, I shiver to think of all that could have gone wrong. For experience teaches us one lesson well: the most dangerous nurse is the one that doesn't know that she doesn't know. Somehow, I was able to connect with a mentor who helped me learn and prioritize and become more proficient not just at skills but at making those all-important judgement calls.

Moving from Peds to Med-Surg helped to broaden my perspective and taught me how to work with a team approach. When I started out, we used paper charts and spent a good deal of time designing care plans for our patients. While I sometimes questioned the day-to-day usefulness of what we did, it certainly helped inculcate in my mind what was important: monitoring change and knowing which changes to focus on.

A few years later, home health became a good continued training ground, helping me to think critically and to see the patient as more than a diagnosis or a room number. Patients now became family members, part of a bigger picture that involved others in their recovery or decline. Using nursing interventions to help patients rehab at home, I began to put even more pieces of the puzzle of health together. I learned to accept more, judge less; I learned to see beyond what was said; I learned to know and recognize limits of care and also to see unbounded potential.

Parish Nursing came into the picture of my nursing career when my personal life demanded even more flexibility. With three small children, I found the early and late hours very difficult and was thrilled to learn that such a thing as parish nursing even existed! Starting out as one of the first in the training class in our area back in 1997, the challenges and rewards of this field have continued to hold my interest over the years. The variety is endless between health promotion, disease prevention and nurturing the needy, the job is more than a position, it is a calling. While the leadership of my congregation comes and goes, the relationship building as a nursing professional and a caring individual continue to be rewarding.

Parish Nurses work in several models: paid, stipend-paid, and volunteer. My program pays a stipend and is associated with the local health system. I work 20 hours a week at my church doing visitation at home and in the hospital, designing and promoting health maintenance programs, and serving as a patient-advocate. Each day is different and demands intense flexibility and willingness to respond to a large variety of situations. Many times, I become involved with eldercare issues, with the care of the dying and with the mourning that takes place after the death.

As our last child headed off to college, I began to look around for another nursing job that could help fill the financial cracks that tuition seemed to open up. When my sister-in-law died in the hospice house in our area, I felt sure that this was just where I needed to be. Hospice work blended well with my parish nursing and the home visits, the care of the dying and the whole-family aspects were simply a continuation of parish nursing and home health. Working prn for hospice pulls from all my years of experience: skills in assessment, nursing judgement, and teamwork all play a part in my work as a part time hospice nurse.

What are some of the stand-out lessons of this long career?

The relationships matter the most. As the saying goes, "No one cares what you know until they know that you care."
Kindness and compassion go on forever and pay out the biggest dividends in your own life.
Staying up-to-date and becoming an expert in your field is both energizing and essential to long-term survival as a nurse. Graduation is just the beginning of the learning process!
Everything will change. The more we lean into it and move with it, the happier we will be-not that all change is for the good, but we have a better long term prognosis as nursing professionals if we are willing to look change straight in the face and address it.
We all make mistakes. Being willing to own our mistakes, to do our best to correct them and then to learn from them and move on will help us have long-lasting and satisfying careers.

What about you?

Where have you been on your nursing journey?

What would you add to my list of "stand-out" lessons?

As I set my tea cup in the sink, I looked out the window in time to see the sun sink over the horizon. Gratefully, I took off my work badge and set it aside, ready to regroup for another day!

Love Being a Nurse: 33 Years and Going Strong

What are some of the stand-out lessons of this long career?

What about you?

About jeastridge, BSN, RN

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