The unwritten social contract, which implies that individuals must meet their own needs before attending to other issues, is lost on too many nurses and other healthcare workers. We cannot effectively care for patients unless we care for ourselves first. The moral of the story is to take care of your most basic needs first, for this is the only body you will ever have. Your needs come first!
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According the the unwritten social contract, "each individual in a society has an underlying obligation, to the best of his ability, and before all else, to take care of his own basic needs, both immediate and for the foreseeable future, before attending to the needs of others" (Bell, 2008). The social contract has no specific person or author to which I can attribute credit because, after all, it is unwritten and unspoken.
Nurses and nursing students are well-schooled in theories surrounding basic needs. We all learn about Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs fairly early in our educations, and the idea is drilled into our heads that every person will experience consequences if basic needs are not being addressed.
A person's most basic needs can be easily remembered by using the acronym OWN-A-SEX, which stands for oxygen, water, nutrition, activity, sleep, elimination, and sex.
Even though nurses know all about the importance of basic needs, too many healthcare workers neglect their own most essential needs during the course of their work shifts. Countless nurses arrive to the workplace with insufficient rest, run around with full bladders, care for patients while hungry, fail to hydrate adequately, and otherwise shove their most basic physiological needs to the wayside while drifting along during the shift.
The principles surrounding the unwritten social contract seem to be lost on way too many nurses who place the needs of patients, families, physicians, coworkers, and management above their own. Other nurses view their entry into the nursing profession as some type of altruistic higher calling that involves devoting their lives to helping others first.
Anyhow, the culture of inpatient bedside nursing at many facilities seems to produce excuses for the fact that staff nurses and other healthcare workers regularly fail to meet their needs for food, water, sleep, and timely elimination.
Many years down the line, these same nurses are suffering from various ailments, taking multiple medications, and feeling used and abused by the healthcare system that employs them. Numerous patients have come and gone during the years through admissions, discharges, transfers, and demise, while the bedside nurse deals with the same body for the rest of his or her life. If we do not take care of the one body we have, it will slowly fall apart.
Some would say that the most caring, unselfish nurses will always ensure the safety and address the needs of their patients above all else. However, the most effective healthcare worker is the one who has rested, refueled, rehydrated, and relieved himself when the urge comes. We cannot effectively care for patients unless we care for ourselves first. The moral of the story is to take care of your most basic needs first, for this is the only body you will ever have.
