Elizabeth - Why I'd Rather be a Nurse

Elizabeth -







Even when I was a candy-sriper at 45, I always enjoyed the challenges in nursing, but it gets difficult at times. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, wondering if I checked the allergy band on a patient. I have actually called the floor from home in the middle of the night to ask if the patient was OK. The mental stress is hard. I'm always thinking, "Did I double check that med before I gave it?"

The part I like most is when patients say, "Thank you so much for taking care of me." I know I make a difference, even if it's just comforting someone by holding their hand when their family's not there. Or helping someone pass away peacefully. Or helping them get back to their pre-hospital state. All that makes me happy. But, what really makes me happy is the preventative education of patients.

It takes a toll when things go poorly and I write in my journal to process. I talk to my fellow nurses, who are my dearest friends. If I have a rough go of it or a disagreement with a physician, I talk about that. Or I might take a run around the track for five miles and free my mind by not think about anything.

Physicians are under a lot of stress, too. Patients sometimes take out their frustrations on their doctor when things aren't going right. I work with some wonderful physicians, but they can get cranky and take it out on the nursing staff. I don't have a problem with confronting them in a professional way – one care giver to another.

But some physicians don't take nurses seriously. They make comments like, "How many letters do you have after your name?" They don't see nursing as a real profession. Now that there are more male nurses, I've had the opportunity to watch their interactions with doctors. It's very different; the male nurses get more respect. There's no good reason for that.

I wish they could see it like I do … the doctors are like the architects of a building, but the nurses are the ones who hire the crew and order the materials and actually raise the building … or in our case, raise the level of care to make healing happen. I've had people ask me if I wouldn't like to be a doctor someday. My answer is: absolutely not. I wouldn't want to be the diagnostician who just comes in and then leaves. I prefer to provide the care.

We are using our critical thinking skills more now than in the past. We review charts, look at labs, and try to grasp the whole picture. In the past, nurses were oriented toward accomplishing each separate task. They didn't worry about causes and effects--the big picture. Now we are more competent and we have a larger role, which sometimes causes a rift between the generations of nurses.

I have great respect for the older nurses in our community. They work hard. But they're convinced they can do anything, and they don't need help. If they're supposed to pass meds to 30 patients, they do it. Young women will say, "I don't think so. That's not safe."

The younger nurses are saying they don't want to have 16 or 25 or 30 patients and pass meds to all of them. They don't want to get burned out. The older ones say, "Oh, get over it" because that's what they had to do. They see the younger nurses as lazy. We see ourselves as professionals, not hand maidens to the physicians or slave labor.

The women I work with and I are a good team."People on the outside hold nurses in high esteem, but nurses are still undervalued in the medical community itself." We work together well and are respected by our administration. A few years ago, we were emphasizing recruitment of nurses rather than focusing on retaining the quality nurses we had. So we made a list of concerns, with suggestions for improvement, and took it to an administrator. One of our ideas was the attendance award, and he liked it. Now people get gift certificates for 3 months of perfect attendance and it is a big hit. Retention is up, we’re happier and it was good that they listened to us.

Nurses need support within the healthcare community. It's ironic that people on the outside of the health care system hold nurses in such high esteem, but nurses are still undervalued in the medical community itself and sometimes nurses don’t even value each other. I’m glad we are gravitating more and more to a more respectful relationship with each other, and I wish nursing as a whole could get there faster.

Power Strategies: Respect, Solidarity, Innovation
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