How has nursing changed you?

[thoughtful21]

I definitely don't feel like the same person I was, years ago, before I started going to nursing school and working in healthcare. How has nursing changed you?

[Davey Do]

How has nursing changed you?

Nursing hasn't changed me as much as it's reinforced some of my beliefs.

This thread is an example:

"Being a nurse means..." that you learn to keep your opinions that are not generally accepted to yourself and just do your job!

[BSNbeauty, BSN, RN]

I feel old , tired and fat .

[Davey Do]

I feel old , tired and fat .

Yeah, but prnqday, would we not still be old, tired, and fat had we not gone into nursing?

[pixierose, BSN, RN]

He was comatose. Nothing hurt or offended him. ...you child.

So, you're going to resort to name calling when you don't like something said to you? I think macawake was very professional in how she worded it.

My mother has been lingering toward death for a while now. It's been torture. I can't honestly say what she hears, and nor can you so *stop right there.* But if I heard a health care professional wax religious while caring for her ... yes, I would be distressed for her. My mother doesn't believe in God. She has always been someone who corrected another when one assumed she was a believer; to think she would have to do so on her death bed of all places is unconscionable.

I don't think our own religious belief system should come into play while working, whether we believe in God, or are atheist, etc.

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

I cannot even begin to express to you how distressed this would have made me if I was your patient. I don't share your religious beliefs and if you had proselytized to me when I was in such a vulnerable state, you would have made my final moments on this earth some of the most upsetting and anxiety provoking of my life. I hope, for your patient's sake, that he did share your beliefs and found comfort in your words, but I also hope you come to realize that not everyone does and it's not your place to impose on them without their consent.

I don't see anything wrong with what he said. I find it sad you find offense where there is none.

[Davey Do]

Just for poops and giggles, I thought I'd add my perception of being in a coma.

I was involved in an MVA at the age of 19 and suffered a closed head injury, among other multiple fractures a comminuted fractures of my right arm and leg, a lacerated liver, a ruptured spleen, mediastinal air bubble, hematuria, and some other injuries.

After awakening from being unconscious for 3 weeks, my family and friends talked about what they had said to me while I was unconscious. My older brother said he told me that I had been in an accident and that I was in the hospital.

I incorporated what he said into something I interpreted as a dream. In my dream, my brother was standing on a bridge telling me that I had been in an accident and I tried to tell him that there were other people injured. I said (in my dream, of course) that a truck had gone down into a ditch and nobody could see the truck because of the tall horse weeds and there were injured people inside.

It was something of an upsetting experience.

I remember other things my friends and family said and in my so-called dreams, I would look around the room to find no one.

So I believe an unconscious person has some awareness of what's being said to them, for whatever it's worth.

[Hygiene Queen]

So I believe an unconscious person has some awareness of what's being said to them, for whatever it's worth.

I do too.

When I was working as an aide in nursing home, we had a resident who was dying and comatose. She had been a very exacting woman and one of her demands was that we aides brush her hair for her at bedtime.

Well, I took care of her one evening while she was in this comatose state and I brushed her hair and spoke to her as if she could hear me. I was just doing what she would have liked and I had always been taught "hearing is the last thing to go".

She ended up getting her second wind and pulling through for a bit longer. We were surprised. Not long after, I took care of her again and she had a couple of things to tell me.

First, she stated she was, indeed, able to hear and was somewhat aware. She told me I was the only one during that time that bothered to brush her hair and she knew it was me because of my voice. This just about brought tears to my eyes and gave me chills.

Second, she angrily recounted how a certain nurse had pushed the head of her bed away from the wall and proceeded to pray over her. This nurse's beliefs were not her own and she was livid that this had been forced upon her.

I can tell you that I never forgot that conversation and it had a profound effect upon me.

[pixierose, BSN, RN]

I don't see anything wrong with what he said. I find it sad you find offense where there is none.

And I find it upsetting that someone might impose their religious beliefs onto my mother, who is indeed facing death, when she least can prevent it.

At this stage of someone's life, the end game ... I know my mom doesn't want to hear all about God. She has a different belief system. Let her take peace from that. I want her last thoughts be of her own belief system because that's what brings her comfort in this time of pain. Her upbringing used God as punishment and thus God is not comforting (not that I need to explain that).

I find it upsetting that, when someone politely states that this might be deemed inappropriate, they are called childish.

I trust my mothers' care in her nurses hands. ALL aspects of care. Including this.

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

So I believe an unconscious person has some awareness of what's being said to them, for whatever it's worth.

Confirmed. I was, technically, down to GCS 3- 5 quite a few times on drugs (anaphylaxis) and a couple of times more for pure medical reasons. I remember quite a few things, mostly sounds, and I understood some of what was said by others. Some of those things I interpreted wrongly (and, for some reason, always unpleasantly) and it took a few weeks after getting out of there to reconcile my impressions with what it was in reality.

Back in my home country, I once cared for a young woman who fell asleep drunk in the middle of winter. She was, pretty much, deep frozen, but she was young and otherwise healthy, so we tried our and her luck and started intensive care. In the middle of it, the chief physician said aloud something like "couple of hours more, and we'll quit working on that frozen piece of meat". She was comatose all right at that point with, as far as I remember, not even corneal reflex. She slowly woke up with minor residual deficits. In a few weeks, when she by chance met that doctor again, she suddenly asked him, straight in face if he ever named her "a piece of frozen meat" or it was her bad dream, or something? Poor doc almost got heart attack then and there!

[EGspirit]

For the record, I hope my patient was able to hear me. I doubt it, but I hope so. I did my best for him and his family, and my best is something I have always had a very good reputation for as a nurse, even among people who didn't like me. Keep in mind, the reason I did all that I did for him was because a bunch of lazy nurses before me never did--probably atheists.

So, my best comes with my religious convictions. The only reason I'm a nurse and not an accountant is because of my religious convictions. I have had so many dying patients. I have been on so many codes. When you've walked a mile in my shoes then I might listen to you. I loved my patient as I love myself. I did unto him, as I would have it done unto me. That's what my best comes with. And I can tell you right now, he was lucky I was his nurse. He never regained consciousness. He died. But when his family came to see him, he looked dignified instead of disheveled. He was clean, orderly, smelled good, and looking at peace.

Judge me? Go judge yourself.

I was his nurse. He was my patient. He couldn't do for himself, so I did for him. And if the worst thing he had to endure was my statement of faith meant to encourage him and give him strength, then he got off pretty easy. He was an old man, a vet, he raised a family. I doubt he was offended by my comments--and I hope that he did hear them.

[BeccaznRN, RN]

Keep in mind, the reason I did all that I did for him was because a bunch of lazy nurses before me never did--probably atheists.

Judge me? Go judge yourself.

Atheists are lazy? Says who? Ah....the one that is imploring everyone NOT to judge.

[JadedCPN, BSN, RN]

It's why God called you to it--to change you.

Before I read anything else on this thread, I feel the need to point out that not everyone feels called by god or even believes in god yet you always seem to push that onto many of your threads. Awesome for you whatever you believe, but not everyone believes the same way and that's ok.

ETA: Nevermind, I read the rest of the thread and am gonna go hit my head against the wall repeatedly.