improving your nursing improves you?

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What do you feel you need to improve upon to be a better nurse? I've come to realize I need to work on not allowing my frustration to come through when I feel it (among other things!).

I recently had a needy patient who was really trying my patience. At one point, I forced myself to give her a smile as I was trying to make her comfortable and she said "thank you for the smile". It reminded me that she really is a nice lady and that patients/family really do pick up on our body language/tone of voice.

One of the things that satisfies me about being a nurse is that it motivates me to be a better person. What are you working on to improve your nursing?

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Specializes in School Nursing.

Nicely put ! I feel as you do. Some day's it's harder than other !

:heartbeat Praiser

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Specializes in ER, Acute care.

yes, you did put it nicely. i know sometimes when a family member starts in on me that the happy go lucky attitude sometimes fades and i try to redirect back to the pt. i had an episode yesterday, my cna left her pager at the nurse station and i get a page in all caps get rm# off bedpan, needs assist now. i go to the pt room and the spouse starts in on me about calling 4 times and not getting assist for the pt, and talking about throwing the bedpan in the hall to get attention. i know the look on my face when this was said was probably like "what the heck", i assisted the pt and the cna came in and cont. to apologize to the pt, and all i could say was if you call and do not get a response from the cna call for the nurse. what else can you do? the cna was not busy at the time so there was no excuse for this to occur, it just made us all look bad. :no: when the shift ended manys hours later, the pt hugged me, and the spouse just smiled.........

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Specializes in Cardiology, Oncology, Medsurge.

I do feel overall nursing has helped me improve. Sometimes not though, especially if I am at home and find myself multitasking, as if I were juggling 7 needy patients. Why make life at home more difficult than it need be? Perhaps sometime I'll take a mini vacation and focus my attention on one specific enterprise rather than float about as if I were a virtual fly, high on coffee buzzing the web.

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Specializes in floor to ICU.

Yes, I frequently have to give myself "attitude adjustments" :wink2:

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