Okay, so I'm a pre-nursing student who wants to work in the NICU someday. Well, a couple days ago a group of pre-Nursing students-myself included-talked about looking forward to Nursing school. I said that I couldn't wait to be a NICU nurse. One pre-nursing student replied, "But you'll have to watch babies die!" And I answered, "Yeah, but I'll be able to save babies' lives as well."
Another pre-Nursing student, who I find to be smug and abrasive, stated, "Nurses rarely save lives." ***** I wanted to slap him for making an ignorant statement.
So, is his statement true? Do Nurses "rarely" save lives? How many lives have YOU saved?
Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
Ok superhero nurses, how do you know you saved their lives, are you God or do yall have some powers that I dont to determine when one was going to die
*** Well "God" is just made up. Many times it is obvious a patient will die if a nurse does not intervene right NOW. Bleeding out is a good example. The hypotensive or bradycardia patient is another. You never saved a person by implementing external pacing? You never bagged a apneic patient with a face mask and an ambu bag? Today we had a guy who was being transported by a volunteer to med-surg for "observation" when he had an anaphylactic reaction and his tongue swelled u so large he could not get air. An ICU nurse passing by dropped a nasal airway in, started to bag the patient and called a code. When the CRNA showed and the patient was intubated and headed to the ICU the ICU nurse continued on her way to lunch, picking up her conversation about her upcoming wedding as if nothing happened. That patient has just been examined by a physician in the ER and admitted for "obs". Had there not been a quick thinking nurse that patient would have died. Not very unusual.
Of course nurses save lives. I can tell you that as a parent whose child spent the first 6 weeks of his life in the NICU at our Children's Hospital and as a nurse! If it wasn't for the nurse, who is on 24/7, many pts would not make it. I can't say enough how grateful I am to the nurses who worked with my son and myself. We not only have our pts, but we also care for the families/loved ones who are with our pts. Seems to me this student has lots to learn. Good luck to you!
I see a whole lot of people with an inflated sense of what they do. I have taken care of literally thousands of patients and have yet to save one life. What I have done is provide interventions that supported perfusion until the patient can maintain homeostasis themselves, or a surgical solution can be implemented. All of that takes a team approach. Even physicians don't "save lives".
While you're relishing, consider the OP (pre-nursing student not excused), not even being capable of defending to some point, nursing being about helping save lives. What gives? The guy is entitled to his own opinion but the OP's non-response is bothering, "Like seriously??!
Who says I didn't respond? I firmly told him that nurses save lives ALL the time. But I don't know how or the specifics because I've never been a nurse a day in my life. Hence why I ask all the experts here!
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
is this where i jump in and declare that i DON"T save lives...
rather, i help them die. (hospice)
leslie:p
I would disagree. You don't prolong their life necessarily, but in hospice you preserve the quality of whatever time that patient has left. And you do aggressively manage end-of-life symptoms that can be so devastating for the patient and family. That's just as life-saving to me as bringing someone back from a full code.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
I see a whole lot of people with an inflated sense of what they do. I have taken care of literally thousands of patients and have yet to save one life. What I have done is provide interventions that supported perfusion until the patient can maintain homeostasis themselves, or a surgical solution can be implemented. All of that takes a team approach. Even physicians don't "save lives".
What has been described has been interventions such as the above, that if hadn't occurred, the patient would have died. Or they caught a subtle change that alerted the need for further diagnostic tests and an earlier diagnosis of a potentially life-ending event. You choose to describe your intervention in purely physiologica terms, and the nurses here are describing those interventions as "saving lives". There is nothing wrong with that phrase and far from being caused by inflated sense of importance or superhero complex, it emphasises what nurses do on a slightly higher plane, and nursing school is much more than nuts and bolts. Well nuts maybe but. .
No one here thinks they are God, or believes their touch can raise the dead. But in a field that embraces the subject of nursing as not just a technician, as you do, we incorporate some metaphysical elements. Nurses who have been around for a long time know for certain it is way more than "I didn't save a life I stopped the bleeding", and it is unfair to scoff at it because you don't understand it.
Most of nursing is give-give-give, and not because we're martyrs, but so much is expected from us out of so many directions, if one thing stops being demanding something else will quickly fill the gap. If it makes us able to get up and go to work each day to think "I saved a life" rather than "I bagged a baby", why would you object to it? I don't know if you read all the responses here, but I saw no arrogance or feeling of omnipotence at all.
Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
Lol at saving the doctors. I have heard some Nurses state that they have had to correct the doctors' mistakes.
But seriously, I'm just really ticked off that he made such an ignorant statement. If nurses don't save lives, then what DO they do, exactly? Stand around and look pretty? I find him to be pretty argumentative (always tries to start something). If he says that again, how should I reply?
Tell him "That's right. The poor ones don't save many. Are you just saying what kind you're planning to be?"
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
That's right. On TV they do it all the time. That's what you were referring to, right?
They can actually save a life while they are sitting in their office 10 miles away! When they are rounding their amazing capacity to save lives can occur in the 10 seconds they spend with each patient!
Wrong-o, and any physician who knows his/her way around patient care will tell you that. Saving lives is a team effort, with every member applying specialty expertise. MDs don't know it all; a good one will tell you that.
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PMFB-RN, RN
5,351 Posts
*** Well "God" is just made up. Many times it is obvious a patient will die if a nurse does not intervene right NOW. Bleeding out is a good example. The hypotensive or bradycardia patient is another. You never saved a person by implementing external pacing? You never bagged a apneic patient with a face mask and an ambu bag? Today we had a guy who was being transported by a volunteer to med-surg for "observation" when he had an anaphylactic reaction and his tongue swelled u so large he could not get air. An ICU nurse passing by dropped a nasal airway in, started to bag the patient and called a code. When the CRNA showed and the patient was intubated and headed to the ICU the ICU nurse continued on her way to lunch, picking up her conversation about her upcoming wedding as if nothing happened. That patient has just been examined by a physician in the ER and admitted for "obs". Had there not been a quick thinking nurse that patient would have died. Not very unusual.