Ten Things I Love About Nursing

[VivaLasViejas]

#10 I get to work in the most comfortable clothing on the planet. When I was a nurse manager, I was going through the worst of my perimenopause.....in polyester and double knits, no less. Now I wear soft cotton scrubs, which are essentially pajamas with lots of pockets. Good times!

#9 Sheer variety. There are so many types of nursing that it would take several lifetimes to try them all. Even in my comparatively brief career, I've worked Med/Surg, postpartum, ICU, assisted living, and long-term care. I've been a parish nurse, a floor nurse, a DON, a care manager, and a clinical instructor. What else can you do with a two-year degree that takes you as far and earns you a decent living in the bargain?

#8 Speaking of pay: I know I'll never get rich, especially not in LTC, but I still earn twice the average hourly wage for my part of the country. Works for me.

#7 The opportunity to meet so many different people in so many different situations. I've taken care of politicians, athletes, local celebrities, priests, and hospital CEOs. I've also cared for people at the other end of the spectrum, many of whose stories are equally compelling. I've seen people at their best, and worst. I've seen life begin, and more often, I'm the one to see it end. I've known a 105-year-old lady who had a hip replacement and went on to tour Europe, and a 40-year-old father of two who received a cancer diagnosis, went home, and quietly hanged himself in the family's garage.

#6 OK, so it's corny, but I love taking care of people and helping them resolve their problems. Nothing gives me a bigger kick than to see patients come in who can't even bear weight, and then watch them grow stronger over the weeks or months they're with us, eventually to return home or go to a lower level of care. I also enjoy my relationships with our long-term residents and do everything I can to keep them as healthy and comfortable as possible. Sometimes it's as simple as fetching Marian a bag of pretzels, or as involved as taking digital pictures of Harry's "Resident of the Month" bulletin board, enlarging them on my home computer and making a huge collage to put up on the wall of his room so he can see it every day even after the display is taken down.

#5 Diversity among my co-workers. I used to be pretty sheltered when I was a small-town SAHM. But nurses come in all ages, sizes, colors, and philosophies of life, and I've learned more from those who are vastly different from me than I ever could have from people of similar backgrounds and life experiences. From my Filipino nursing comrades, for example, I've learned a great deal about facing life with optimism and gratitude; and thanks to my Mexican co-workers, I know how to make chicken enchiladas with homemade tortillas and a mean mole sauce!

#4 Learning about all sorts of fascinating diseases and conditions. I've always been part detective, and I love the challenge of piecing together behaviors, symptoms, and other clues to come up with the correct diagnosis and a treatment plan. (An added bonus: doctors usually take me seriously and give me what I ask for, because they know I've done my homework.) Nursing has also forced me way out of my comfort zone, providing frequent tests of my ability to maintain not only my composure but my lunch!

#3 Being a nurse has taught me a great deal of patience, which was in short supply for most of my life. As a child and young adult, I was quick-tempered and apt to go off like a hand grenade at almost any real or imagined provocation; now, when potty-mouthed Martha asks me for the tenth time in five minutes where the (rhymes with duck) she is supposed to go now, I'm not even tempted to tell her.

#2 Nurses are consistently rated among the most trusted professionals in America. That doesn't hurt MY ego one bit.

#1 To paraphrase the old Peace Corps ad: Nursing is the toughest job I've ever loved. I go home every night dragging my fifty-something body out to the car and feeling like I've aged four decades in the past eight hours. My knees and hips ache; my feet burn; my back sings "Aida". But all I need is a resident's smile, a joke, a moment of shared laughter---that, and a good night's sleep---and the bond is recharged, energizing me for each day's ventures into the lives of my favorite people on earth.

[metowe]

Impetus to change is limited by the current social stucture. What needs to change is the enumerable policies, paper work and work flow processes added in the name of safety. http://www.centerforajustsociety.org/press/forum.asp?cjsForumID=1134&nav=publications Ultimately it is a form of oppression because no one imagines telling administration that a policy couldn't be followed on the most optimal day. But the social structure is another thing. The below is adapted directly from C.S. Lewis from the chapter Bloodery.

In a country governed by an oligarchy, huge numbers of people, and among them some very stirring spirits, know they can never hope to get into that oligarchy; it may therefore be worth their while to attempt a revolution. Within the Nursing profession the lowest social class of all is the new graduate Nurses, therefore too weak or inexperienced, to dream of revolt. The experienced nurses 5-10 years are no longer new graduates but not yet part of the good ol’ boy system. These Nurses had popularity enough to qualify them as leaders of a revolution were already beginning to hope for internal promotions themselves (preceptor, charge, education). It suited the mid-level Nurses better to accelerate their professional and social progress by courting the existing administration. Why would these Nurses (5-10 years exp) risk a revolt which, in the unlikely event of succeeding, would destroy the very prize they were longing to share? And the prize (for which nobody openly acknowledges) is a reprieve from the harsh realities of actually caring for the patient the very aspect that should have inclined them to become a Nurse in the first place.

[junebug50]

I agree whole heartedly. There is days I feel like hanging it up, then someone will say thank you and make it all worth while.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Impetus to change is limited by the current social stucture. What needs to change is the enumerable policies, paper work and work flow processes added in the name of safety. http://www.centerforajustsociety.org/press/forum.asp?cjsForumID=1134&nav=publications Ultimately it is a form of oppression because no one imagines telling administration that a policy couldn't be followed on the most optimal day. But the social structure is another thing. The below is adapted directly from C.S. Lewis from the chapter Bloodery.

In a country governed by an oligarchy, huge numbers of people, and among them some very stirring spirits, know they can never hope to get into that oligarchy; it may therefore be worth their while to attempt a revolution. Within the Nursing profession the lowest social class of all is the new graduate Nurses, therefore too weak or inexperienced, to dream of revolt. The experienced nurses 5-10 years are no longer new graduates but not yet part of the good ol' boy system. These Nurses had popularity enough to qualify them as leaders of a revolution were already beginning to hope for internal promotions themselves (preceptor, charge, education). It suited the mid-level Nurses better to accelerate their professional and social progress by courting the existing administration. Why would these Nurses (5-10 years exp) risk a revolt which, in the unlikely event of succeeding, would destroy the very prize they were longing to share? And the prize (for which nobody openly acknowledges) is a reprieve from the harsh realities of actually caring for the patient the very aspect that should have inclined them to become a Nurse in the first place.

There is, unfortunately, a very large grain of truth to this quote. I'm not proud of the fact that I was part of that system for a number of years, even though I never really subscribed to the let's-make-more-work-for-the-floor-staff school of management, and I never thought myself "above" anyone. But when you get right down to where the cheese binds, achieving and then remaining at a high level in the hierarchy is sort of a nursing version of Stockholm syndrome, where the 'victim' begins to identify with his/her oppressors. Weird.

But perhaps that is why I've become so keenly aware of what my own bosses have to go through; even though I'm 'merely' a floor nurse once again, I can't unring that bell---I can't pretend I've never seen the inner workings of nursing administration---and instead of being angry at a system that works to beat nurses down, I simply feel sorry for them. And I, optimist that I am, rejoice in the ability to leave it all at the door when I go home for the night and not take it up again until I walk back through that door the next afternoon.:)

[metowe]

I met a NP that was active in the Nurse empowerment Washington march in 1995. This Nurse quotes "I would work as a restaurant server before I would ever go back to the bedside". I hear quotes that parrallel this "I miss the hands on care but could never do that again". The system gives us less and less time every year to do the very things we LOVE. Making a difference in the lives of people, knowing we eased the burden of our fellow man in even the smallest of ways. Patient care is secondary to the charting only to often and no one looks at the added value of the paper work. It is what some beauracracy says 'good care' looks like. Lets measure the outcomes not micromanage the work flow.

[MaritesaRN]

Bravo Viva !!!another one of those excellent writing skills showng in here. :typing Have you ever thought of getting together all your stories and publish it as one of those humorous nursing anecdotes? You are really good. I like the way you interject some good rhyme stuff there w/ the duck ..:chuckle, but I missed the Aida-- what is that ? Am i this naive?

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Bravo Viva !!!another one of those excellent writing skills showng in here. :typing Have you ever thought of getting together all your stories and publish it as one of those humorous nursing anecdotes? You are really good. I like the way you interject some good rhyme stuff there w/ the duck ..:chuckle, but I missed the Aida-- what is that ? Am i this naive?

No, it's just a saying that means my back hurts and is "singing the blues"......or in this case, opera.:chuckle

And BTW......I am writing a book. With health care being such a hot topic nowadays, perhaps this is the time for the general public to hear it from a front-line nurse's perspective. It's going to contain funny stuff, to be sure, but there will also be some sad and poignant stories as well as some fairly graphic descriptions of the human condition, health insurance companies, and the 'customer service' approach to patient care.:typing

[franciscangypsy]

No, it's just a saying that means my back hurts and is "singing the blues"......or in this case, opera.:chuckle

And BTW......I am writing a book. With health care being such a hot topic nowadays, perhaps this is the time for the general public to hear it from a front-line nurse's perspective. It's going to contain funny stuff, to be sure, but there will also be some sad and poignant stories as well as some fairly graphic descriptions of the human condition, health insurance companies, and the 'customer service' approach to patient care.:typing

Let us know when it comes out.