Gayle - A Recent Retiree Reflects

Gayle -







I graduated from nursing school in 1968 and recently retired in April of 2006. I love retirement, but I also loved my career. I enjoyed the constant change of the medical field, the contact with people and the feeling of making a difference in somebody’s life, even if it was only with a small, caring gesture.

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a nurse. In high school we had to research and write about three careers. I had a horrible time with the project because I wasn’t interested in anything but nursing.

From the very beginning, nursing was everything that I wanted it to be. I’ve heard people say, “I didn’t know you had to do this kind of work.” Or, “I thought you just walked up and down the hall and patted people and gave them pills. I didn’t realize you have to give them bedpans and wash them.” Even though I didn’t know exactly what to expect, it was always what I wanted. Whether I was helping with an emergency situation or simply moving somebody from a bed to a wheelchair, I was fulfilled knowing that I was making a difference in each patient’s life.

Every day presented something new, and the anticipation I felt as I drove to work each morning was exciting. I used my commute home to mentally go down the hallway and into each room to think what I did that touched the patient or the patient’s family. I considered it a good day if I put a patient at ease, or made the patient more physically comfortable in some way. That is the most important part of nursing.

My husband and I walk the mall and I feel so good when I run into somebody I’ve cared for and they say to the person they are with, “She was my nurse. She helped me when I was feeling so bad.”

It takes a special person to be a nurse. Anybody can do the mechanics of nursing. If you take time to study and pay attention to what you’ve learned, you can do the technical aspects of the job. But in order to be a good nurse, you have to really care about people and be willing to give from the heart. I want new nurses to consider that as they face all the technological advances that have been made in nursing.

Nursing schools have changed since I received my 3-year diploma. Now the students are not expected to have as much practice with patients before they graduate. When I was in school, I worked four hours a day for an entire summer in an operating room.“I had done my job well if I put a patient at ease, or touched that person’s life in some way. That is the most important part of nursing.” I also had a rotation where I acted as the head nurse, so I had to make decisions and be in charge of an entire floor. Students out of nursing school today may only experience bedside nursing and may have only worked with two or three patients. They have a lot of book learning but don’t have the hands-on experience. I said something about not being prepared to a recent graduate, and she said, “The schools teach us what we need to know from the books and expect that during the first year in the hospital you will make us a nurse.” It’s a good thing we do mentor and precept each other and that this new nurse expected it from me, because book learning isn’t enough.

As I reflect on my career, I would advise nurses to remember why they went into nursing, and try to connect with that feeling every day. Don’t look at nursing as just a job and patients as simply having to be cared for. Find something that keeps you fresh and brings you enjoyment every day.

When I was a child, my friends and sisters would play a game by putting our hands over my mother’s eyes to let her guess whose hands were there. My mom always knew my hands. She said there was something in the feel of my hands that gave them away. We would try to trick her and put one of my hands over one eye and a friend’s hand on the other, and she could still tell which was mine. Sometimes when I touch patients they will take my hand and say, “You have such soft hands.” That always reminds me of my mother and how she would say, “There’s something about your hands. I can always tell, Gayle, that they are yours.” She would call them helping hands. It always made me feel that she thought there was something special in my hands.

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