What Was a Highlight of Your Career as a Nurse?

[dareese, MSN, RN]

I was talking with a new nurse graduate and she wanted to know what was a highlight of my career. I had to stop and think a minute. I was wondering what other nurses describe as a highlight of their career? Can you give me any examples?

[Davey Do]

13 minutes ago, dareese said:

  I was wondering what other nurses describe as a highlight of their career?  Can you give me any examples?

At Wrongway Regional Medical Center, where I had worked for 17 years, I was the first nurse there to receive the DAISY Award in February 2020.

One moth later, in March 2020, I was terminated over trumped up charges.

""Fired & Retired"

I believe that I went out of my career with a bang.

 

[dareese, MSN, RN]

Wow!

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

Having the courage to change career paths after 25 years at the same job. Turns out that was an even better decision than I anticipated since I left my job in a SNF and COVID hit about a month after I started my new job.  

While there were of course still a ton of COVID related changes, the impact of those changes in dialysis was a whole lot less than in LTC

[Hannahbanana, BSN, MSN]

I am privileged to have lived long enough to have a few. My professional org awarded me the first recognition for outstanding volunteer service as a mentor and editor, stunning me at our annual meeting a few years back. My Scouts area council gave me a Silver Beaver award for outstanding volunteer service in leader and youth training and health & safety/risk management. My students ranked me #1 as a clinical instructor a few times. A few of my attorney clients have been unexpectedly effusive in their evals of my work for them, one winning a truly immense judgment  against steep odds. Mostly I remember patient care situations where I made a difference, and being promoted to the top of the clinical ladder after years of soaking up all I could from people ahead of me. All nursing, lots of ways to do your best. 

[Kitiger, RN]

Mt highlights have been the "satisfaction in a job well done" type of things - times when I made a difference - like pointing out the medication that could be causing the thrombocytopenia, or realizing that the parent was confused about a procedure and then teaching them how to do it. It's the little things that add up.

I have saved all the thank you notes that I received from former and current clients. I especially like the ones written by siblings.

I was very pleased when my boss offered me the job of nurse supervisor. I declined it because I don't like to work behind a desk and I don't like to be responsible for other nurses. My skills are in one-to one bedside nursing. But it was nice to be asked. ?

 

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

I've had quite a few over the course of my nine years in nursing. One that makes me particularly happy is related to a patient I cared for a few times before he passed away in December of 2019. His wife would always stay with him at the hospital and they would sort of set up camp for a few weeks as we dealt with his latest infection or illness. I was their nurse in critical care and a few times when I picked up per diem med surg shifts. I was his nurse for most of the last two weeks of his life on nights. I went to his funeral service that December and thought that would be the end of it. Then in April, just a couple days after losing a particularly heart breaking patient (I wrote about it in the COVID thread), one of my coworkers said I had a call. 

I picked up the phone and I heard "Darling, it's so good to hear your voice. This is ____, and I've been thinking about you ever since ____'s death. You were our angel in those last weeks and I was hoping that I could have your address and phone number so we can keep in touch." We text back and forth every few weeks and we're planning to meet up this Summer for lunch. The timing of her call couldn't have been better. Just when I was feeling so down that we couldn't save the young man with COVID and really doubting that I was doing the right thing, here was someone saying they remembered me for my care. That made it all a bit better. 

[Davey Do]

Here's an excerpt from an article I wrote in 2010, shortly after becoming an allnurses member, about an experience in 1993 while working as a HH NS:

"One morning, a few days after Christmas, I received a telephone call in my office. The call was from the daughter of the elderly man whose case I had opened on Christmas Eve. She called to inform me that her father had passed away, just that morning. But she didn't call only to give me news of his passing. She wanted to let me know how much she and her family appreciated my involvement in their lives. Had I not been able to provide Skilled Nursing services for her father, he may have not been able to be discharged from the hospital. He may have not been able to spend his last Christmas at home with his loved ones. For this, she was very, very grateful.

I hold that appreciation in my heart to this day."

[SmilingBluEyes]

The highlights for me were actually delivering babies when the doctors could not make it in time. It was a rush and a thrill each and every time. Thankfully they came out easily and without complications. I have had the honor of seeing new life come into the world and also seeing people pass on. I have cared for people across the life span.

I am proud of these things.

Great thread.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

I’ve never won any formal awards, but I have been the recipient of kudos from my patients and their families. For me, the reward was a hug, a card, a “thank you”. All I ever wanted to do was make a difference in people’s lives, and I’m proud to say that for some, I did.?

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

The bag of Thank you cards from kids and families, I have every single one!! Often we travelled a long and challenging road to get them to graduation!

The reconnection after they are long gone, when they share that I  made a difference to them at a difficult time in their life. ❤️

[Jedrnurse, BSN, RN]

...a handmade card from a 1st grader saying "thank you for help me when I thow up"...