Disclaimer: I'm an RN student, not yet a practicing nurse. Pick apart the following thoughts as you will.
I really love how well-respected the nursing profession is by the public. When strangers ask me what I'm studying, one of the most common responses is "That's such an honorable career!". I have never told a person I was going to be a nurse and got a negative response like "Oh, one time I was hospitalized and..." or "Oh, you're gonna have to clean up poop!"
One of the main reasons I chose nursing as my career is because I didn't want to just be a number cruncher for some corporation. I didn't want my job to solely entail making someone else a profit. Will I be working for a corporation once I'm employed by a hospital? Yes. Will money be going into administration's pockets as a result of my work? Yes.
However, what will I SEE through my work? Not cash flowing, or projected profits. I will see a mother of 3 cry when she's told she has terminal breast cancer. I will hear a child laugh after weeks of being on life support in intensive care. I will feel genuine touch when I hold the patient for whom I am their only source of comfort. I will laugh with relieved parents when they realize that bump on their first toddler's skin isn't cancer, it's just a mosquito bite. I will be someone's confidant for 12 hours, my ears being the first on which their secrets have landed. I will be trusted with the most personal information about a person. I will have the chance to watch the tear-jerking embrace of a husband to his wife, who he thought wasn't going to make it through the evening.
Is real life a movie? No. I'll get vomited on. I'll probably get fecal matter on my shoes once.. or twice... or more than that. I'll get yelled at by someone physically dependent on narcotics because the doctor wouldn't believe their reported symptoms of pain. I'll be called incompetent by people who have never stepped foot inside a college. I'll have my hours cut because there aren't enough patients on the floor to care for. I'll have to care for drunk drivers, child abusers, rapists, drug addicts, pretentious people who think the world owes them something, and any type of personality the human brain can come up with.
The most rewarding thing, though, will be going home after every shift and thinking, as I lie down exhausted from working 12+ hours straight, about how many lives I positively affected that day, and how many people will never forget the way I cared for them. And on days that I'm driving home wondering WHY I didn't go into an desk-and-chair profession, I hope that this side of me will surface and think about what a difference nurses make in peoples' lives every day.
