You are a patient in the hospital. You are 45 years old and live a relatively healthy lifestyle. While you were jogging in the park this afternoon, you noticed a sharp pain in your abdomen. You went home, not thinking anything of it. The pain started to get worse later on that night. You think to yourself "this is not normal", so you immediately drive yourself to the hospital.

You were admitted that evening.

A few hours later and after being seen by 3 different doctors, you finally get sent upstairs to a hospital room for the night.

It's 3rd shift and the night nurse has doctors orders to put you on three different IV's, and to start administering 3 different PO meds.

She gets you started and now you are resting.

When you finally wake up, it's morning and the nurses on the floor just had a shift change.

There are two nurses on the floor for covering first shift.

They both are helping you.

One of the nurses walks into your room for the first time and notices that you are on two different IV's that she's never heard of before. That you were slouching and looked uncomfortable, and that your mouth looked dry.

So she immediately tells you that she is going to give you a boost because you look uncomfortable and that your skin was turning red. She also offered you a drink of water because looking at you made her feel dehydrated. She was really concerned about you. She new she could do something to make you feel better. NOT because it's her job, but because she would want to be treated the same way if she was in the hospital.

She leaves the room and immediately goes into the drug book to find out what your medication is and why you are on it.

She looks it up, NOT because she has to, but because she genuinely wants to know what's wrong with you so that she can help facilitae your plan of treatment.

The other nurse walks in and she looks around to make sure you are not a liability to the hospital. She makes sure the bed is in the right position because she is worried she might get a write up. It's time to turn you, so she walks in all hurridly because it's been 19 minutes over the time she was supposed to turn you and she and a tech turns you all fast and doesn't give you a chance to catch your breath or a break-even though you are in a lot of pain. She noticed that your cup was half empty and that your mouth was dry, but thought to herself, I need to see my other patients or I can get in trouble. This nurse doesn't care about you at all. She acts like she's listening when all that's on her mind is going to lunch.

Now which one of these nurses would you prefer? Then, ask yourself if you are going to school to be a nurse for the right reasons.

In the nursing field, compassion counts more than being booksmart...

Ah, but you are assuming that nurses can be only one or the other, which is not the case. A successful nurse is both.

Although personally, if I were the patient, I'd prefer the nurse that knew what she was doing even if she was a bit gruffer, than the one that was all bedside compassion but was about to give me my potassium by IV push.

BTW, you do not indicate the intelligence level of the second nurse. If she was booksmart, she would have caught the dry mucous membranes and lack of oral intake, and started assessing you for dehydration instread of leaving for lunch. Sounds to me like nurse #1 is the better nurse because she's caring, concerned about what she sees, and smart enough to look up the drug you're getting...she's both compassionate and booksmart.

Nurse #2 appears to be caught up in the red tape, which while may not show much compassion, is also not necessarily an indicator of her intelligence...or lack thereof.

I also truly think it takes a combination of both the book smarts and the compassion. A tech can see and do some of the things mentioned above, but a licensed, education RN is needed to tackle some of the higher level issues going on.

I think it's great when a pt has a compassionate and caring nurse, but primarily, gimme a nurse who can keep me and my family safe from harm since they're on the front lines and see much more than the MD who makes a once-a-day visit....

in the nursing field, compassion counts more than being booksmart...

i strongly disagree with that and i have been an rn for over 30 years. if i was a patient getting short of breath, coughing and sputtering, struggling to breathe, the last thing i need is a compassionate nurse holding my hand reassuring me that everything is going to be ok while she fluffs my pillow and tries to readjust my position! she needs to be on the phone with my doctor getting medical orders to fix my horrible blood gasses. it doesn't mean that she has to have a nasty attitude about it, but i want her to know her priorities of care and not let me suffocate.

i think you are confusing compassion with kindness. yes, compassion is important. but, there is a big difference between being compassionate and being kind to people. the definition of compassion is "sorrow for the sufferings or trouble of another or others, with the urge to help; synonym, see pity." (webster's new world dictionary of the american language, college edition, 1966) the word kind means "sympathetic, friendly, gentle, tender-hearted, generous, cordial". (webster's new world dictionary of the american language) that is very different from compassion. having pity for someone isn't the best help for them in every situation. patients come to the hospital for help with their medical conditions--not to be pitied by the staff. that is not what their insurance companies who pay their bills are expecting either. there is no nursing diagnosis for increased suffering which supports a nursing intervention of "provide compassion".

don't get me wrong. i'm not saying a nurse should never be compassionate. what i'm saying is there is a time and place for it. addressing the patient's nursing needs comes first. you police your own emotional behavior.

i've been following your posts. i understand that you are upset. as a student your "job" is to learn how to do procedures, prioritize and organize. there is more than one way to skin a cat and still please your instructors and satisfy you. . .for example, you posted "she noticed that your cup was half empty and that your mouth was dry, but thought to herself, i need to see my other patients or i can get in trouble." leaving the attitude part out of it (because the patient doesn't know what the nurse is thinking), the busy but prudent nurse would delegate another caregiver under her supervision with the task of getting more water for the patient or making sure the patient was given a drink while she attended to something more pressing that needed her attention. i'm guessing that delegation to subordinate staff is not something that has been addressed in your studies yet as a first semester student.

you posted: the other nurse walks in and she looks around to make sure you are not a liability to the hospital. she makes sure the bed is in the right position because she is worried she might get a write up. it's time to turn you, so she walks in all hurriedly because it's been 19 minutes over the time she was supposed to turn you and she and a tech turns you all fast and doesn't give you a chance to catch your breath or a break-even though you are in a lot of pain. she noticed that your cup was half empty and that your mouth was dry, but thought to herself, i need to see my other patients or i can get in trouble. this nurse doesn't care about you at all. she acts like she's listening when all that's on her mind is going to lunch.

everything i underlined is attitude, something a patient couldn't possibly know unless the nurse came out and said what she was thinking them. continuing to want to enforce your own views of nursing care as a priority after you have been told what you need to focus on are going to prevent you from moving ahead and learning what you need to learn in order to move forward in school.

What Daytonite said...

I'm a third semester nursing student and for my understanding, when you are a nurse you are the one who is responsible of your patient's care.

you wrote:

"

So she immediately tells you that she is going to give you a boost because you look uncomfortable and that your skin was turning red. She also offered you a drink of water because looking at you made her feel dehydrated. She was really concerned about you. She new she could do something to make you feel better. NOT because it's her job, but because she would want to be treated the same way if she was in the hospital.

She leaves the room and immediately goes into the drug book to find out what your medication is and why you are on it.

She looks it up, NOT because she has to, but because she genuinely wants to know what's wrong with you so that she can help facilitae your plan of treatment.

So if this patient was being neglected by someone else or why was given the medication he's on, when you start your shift your job as a nurse is to find how to improve your patient's care, and to document everything i.e. the way you found your patient at the start of your shift and the nursing intervention done on this patient and of course call the doctor if needed. If something happens to this patient while in your shift, guess who's going to be the first person that they are going to come up after. AT least this is what we are being told by our instrutors.

You need to be compassionate and teflon-regarding legal liability. You need to be kind, compassionate, and CYA legally at the same time. However, when time is short and something's gotta give, think Maslow's.

I hope I can remember to be compassionate and caring about nursing school 10-15 years from now. It seems that nurses generally get more stressed out and uncaring than when they first started.

Got it.

Gosh, I'm still waiting for my life to be changed forever!

don't let some of these replies get you down. i too have followed your posts and understand what you were trying to say here. you have a lot of passion to be a nurse and maybe just haven't achieved the grades that you wanted. whereas i do agree that you need to be both book smart and kind as a nurse, i think only passion to be a nurse can really bring these 2 things together. it seems like you have the passion. keep reminding yourself that all this hard work is for something you really want.

good luck to you:wink2:

Gosh, I'm still waiting for my life to be changed forever!

Me, too. It takes a lot more than that OP to chage my life -- this thread is just a waste of another minute of my time. The fact that nurses should be nice to their patients is hardly newsworthy.