Ginger - Boundaries: It's all about Respect

Ginger -







My earliest nurse memories are of Miss Duncan. She was the nurse when I was in the hospital at the age of three, and again when my sister was in the hospital with rheumatic fever, around the time I was ten. Miss Duncan was phenomenal to look at. She was tall and stately, with a crisp white uniform, white stockings and white shoes. And of course a nurse’s cap. Everything about her just sort of gleamed.

I also remember being ten or eleven years old and having my appendix removed. Back then, you stayed several days in the hospital for that kind of surgery. There was an African-American nurse who would come in to give me my bed bath. Like Miss Duncan, she had that crisp white uniform and these large yet gentle hands. The bath was so warm and soothing, and I remember thinking that surely it was heaven. So I think between she and Miss Duncan, the seed for my nursing career was planted.

My father worked for a pharmaceutical company. I didn’t want to do what he did, but I knew that healthcare was something interesting to me. He said, “Whatever you do, just be the best.” When I told him that I might like to be a nurse, he said, “Then get your Bachelor’s degree.” At that point, it was a fairly new concept – going to a four-year college for nursing. I ended up in the second graduating Bachelor’s class at the Medical University of South Carolina.

The path of my career has been varied and full of opportunities. Now I advise nurses in a master’s program, as well as recruit for the program.“I try to stand up for what’s right while at the same time respecting a patient’s boundaries.” It’s a good fit for me, because I’ve seen a lot of different areas of nursing, and I’ve learned my share of lessons along the way. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is to be attentive to people and their goals and desires. I can’t just change somebody to be the way I want them to be, or the way that I think is better for them health-wise. I have to meet them where they are and walk the road with them; not just expect to take them to the end.

The first time I got this lesson was when I did a public health rotation in my undergraduate program. There was a 10-year-old boy for whom I was doing a series of home visits. He’d had his right arm amputated clear up to his shoulder because of cancer.
This boy lived with his grandmother on one of the islands in South Carolina, and the grandmother was extremely overweight and a diabetic. Her source of income was selling candy to school-aged children. I was only 20 years old and very idealistic, and I wanted this lady to lose weight and not be dependent on candy for her income. But she told me, in no uncertain terms, that was all well and good, and her weight was not the issue. Her issue, she said, was to learn how to take care of her grandson. I realized that I was imposing my values on her, and that was not really my job as a nurse.

Years later, I had another patient with whom I did home visitation. It was a woman who had no family and lived in a trailer that was just chock-full of rotten food and dead stuff. There was barely enough room in that trailer for a pathway. She had a cord of wood stacked in the living room and she’d literally pick up the wood and throw it into the woodburning stove, which wasn’t vented correctly. I kept wanting to move her to a different place because this was truly an unsafe way to live. But when I brought it up with her, she said to me, “Ginger, if you would move me to Buckingham Palace it would look like this pretty soon, because this is the way I like it.” So, obviously I still hadn’t learned my lesson. My view of the world was wholly different from hers, and I had to re-learn to respect her boundaries.

I’m definitely a patient advocate. I have absolutely stood up to the powers that be and said, “This is wrong, I cannot do that. If you want it done you have to either do it yourself or have somebody else do it.” I try to stand up for what’s right while at the same time respecting a patient’s boundaries. It’s sometimes a fine line to walk, but I think I always do what’s in the best interests of the patient.

It is my belief that nursing will advance as a profession when we have more men in the field, and more of a voice in powerful places like the legislature. Nurses tend to have sort of tunnel vision. They go to their job, do it well, go home, take care of their families and that’s their world. They don’t see their place as a profession. When we have more men and more people that have a voice, nursing will be more readily viewed as a profession.

New nurses coming into the field need to be observant and humble, not simply jump in and change things just because they can. They need to be a part of an organization and see the good and the bad and then make alliances. They are not out there all alone. They need to know that.

The experienced nurses who will be mentoring the new ones need to be patient and kind and respect their education, even if it was different than the one they received. There are still a lot of diploma nurses out there who may find it hard to relate to nurses coming out of four-year degree programs. But they should be attentive to teaching the new ones the skills that they have, and not feel threatened. I know it’s hard to take the time with somebody who’s new, but if they would try it, they’ll find it creates a nice, symbiotic relationship, and everyone moves forward.

Power Strategies: Influence, Respect, Integrity
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