Nursing should be a mental diagnosis

[aerorunner80, ADN, BSN, MSN, APRN]

i just wanted to share the following with everyone who is in nursing school and in nursing in general. i just graduated on may 1 and have been working as a nurse ever since. i did tech work in an icu and sac unit for almost three years and currently am a nurse in a level iii nicu.

i had a rough week and it does happen. just know that you too can survive this and do this.

i have a blog where i talk about my experiences as a new nurse. if you are interested in following it, send me a pm and i will send you the link.

god bless

i, for the life of me, cannot figure out why we subject ourselves to the things we do and then keep coming back, day after day, with a smile on our faces and ready to go again.

i've see things that most normal people would never dream of seeing, i've been involved in some of the saddest cases. i've been there when lifesaving measures are being stopped to let a person pass from this world to the next. i've been there to see a baby taken away from mom by cyfd because she is incompetent to take care of the child. i've sat and watched someone bleed out and die because they refused a blood transfusion and not shed a tear. i've watched a young mother die 4 months after giving birth due to a freak abnormality. i've watched our old generation be coded again and again because the family "just can't let go yet" even though the only thing keeping the patient alive is the medicine we're giving him and the breathing we're doing for them.

i've also been there to see the miracle of a new life being brought into the world. i've been there to see people come back from near death to walking the halls with therapy, ready to go home. i have seen someone code and then at the end of the shift be alert, oriented and cracking jokes. i also have had the privalege to watch parents take their baby home who was born way too early and is now a healthy, happy, baby. i've been there to see the will to live pull someone through the worst of situations.

this is why i think it is a mental disorder. if you noticed, the paragraph on the bizzare and bad things i've seen is a lot bigger than than the positive and i haven't even scratched the surface of everything i've been exposed to so far.

i wonder every day i go into work, why i do this. what draws me to this job that, from the outside, can seem so horrible and inhumane?

for one, it's the support of my fellow nurses. i work with the greatest bunch of people you could ever meet. when something is going wrong or someone is involved in a situation that is not good, even if we all don't get along we still all come together to support each other through these rough times.

another reason i keep coming to work is that every day i come in is a new day for a new miracle. it's a new opportunity to advocate for my patients and to do what is right by them even in the face of adversity. no one day is the same and there is always something new to learn either about your patient, the nursing profession, or about yourself.

i can understand why a lot of new nurses with no other health care experience drop out in their first year but if you have the resiliance and the ability to see the good in all things you do even in the face of evil, i believe you can be one very successful nurse.

i can't stress enough the importance of building up your support system either. your support system is a network of people that you know you can rely on in tough times. they can be your fellow nurses, family, friends, whomever you want it to be. for me it is my family, friends, coworkers, and my faith in god who help me out more than they realize.

another thing to keep in mind is that in the begining, the rough stuff is hard. it sucks and you just want to go home and cry. we all do and it's totally normal. after a while, you get used to seeing some of the rough stuff and you just put on the big nurse panties and do your job because you know you have to do it and even if it seems insignificant and menial, you really do have an impact on your patients care and more importantly, their lives.

we as nurses have our patients lives in our hands and that is nothing to take lightly.

we carry the burden on our shoulders but yet still manage to smile and walk lightly and brightly. we are the light in a dark dark world.

there are only a select few in this world who are equipped to do this job. for some, like me, it's a calling from above that can't be ignored. others are filled with a curiosity and wonderment that can only be satisfied by learning about the miracle of the human body that is taught in nursing. there is also the adrenaline junky who likes the high stress stuff like being invovled in trauma.

it really narrows down to this though. you know you are one of the chosen if your medical record says "mental dx: nurse who loves her job".

[color=#ffffff]6/13/2010 11:06:00 am

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