Thelma - I Was An Unlikely Nursing Student

Thelma -







I had no intention to be a nurse. My baby was delivered by midwives, so I thought I wanted to train to be a midwife. I wanted it enough to overcome my blood phobia. I was so afraid of blood I would pass out in the veterinarian’s office. I didn’t even have to watch what they did to my dog, they would just tell me about it and I would faint. It was not likely I would get through any kind of medical training, and my parents were against me pursuing a medical career, but I was so impressed with the women who delivered my son I decided I wanted to give it a try.

What impressed me most about the midwives was that they were so engaged. There are so few places in life where you can actually change someone’s life, affect the outcome of something and make a real difference, and I felt midwifery was one of those places. At the time I didn’t even know that nurses do the same thing in the delivery room. Now that I’m a nurse, I feel so lucky to walk into people lives when they are in total chaos and help in every way possible. I witness the most powerful moments all the time; every day.

After I graduated from nursing school I wanted to work for the Indian Health Service but they wouldn’t hire new graduates.“I’ll never be famous for anything good or bad, but I get to make a difference in one life at a time, and that’s enough. That’s more than most people get, so that’s why I do it.” I needed work experience. So I ended up on the Hopi reservation and fell in with a man who eventually did a cardiology fellowship. We worked on the Hopi Heart Grant from the American Heart Association, which allowed us to provide education to the Hopi people. That work got me hooked on cardiology. When I left my work at the reservation I did an intensive care unit residency and I’ve been working in intensive care ever since. So my career has been sort of accidental and evolutionary, but it’s worked out to be the perfect fit for me. I’ll never be famous for anything good or bad, but I get to make a difference in one life at a time, and that’s enough. That’s more than most people get, so that’s why I do it.

It took me awhile, but I finally got over my fear of blood. When I was still in nursing school I would get up early the mornings I had to go to surgery and pray that if I threw up I would turn around first, and if I fainted, I would faint backwards. My goal was not to contaminate the sterile field. What I discovered was once the patient was prepped and draped they were not human anymore and the procedure became very interesting. It wasn’t ever as gruesome as I thought it would be. I haven’t fainted in 15 years.

Much of my work has been in not-for-profit health organizations. The idea of making money on illness seems immoral to me. Profiting from suffering is not right. When working in a for-profit organization, the care is different. You are encouraged to cut corners because the focus is the bottom line. I haven’t worked in a lot of for-profit organizations, but with the experience I’ve had I don’t think I want to work for them again.

I’ve been furthering my nursing education and have been disturbed by some of the techniques used in my class. Sometimes the instructors are nurses who seem to be tired of working night shift or are tired of patient care so they become nurse educators. They get the book, study for the lesson, and tell you what’s in the book. They may be expert in some part of nursing, but they have no background in education.

I believe I think very quickly, but I have a lot more to think about than a 21-year-old does. I have a lot more experience from which to gather information that’s going to help me make this or that fact useful. The fact is nothing until it is applied. So I complained to the nurse educator that they were blasting through the curriculum at breakneck speed and I was becoming afraid of how little background the students, including me, were getting. They do it all in PowerPoint, so it’s in outline form and they leave it to us to fill in between the bullet points. They’re also notorious for saying, “Well, you know, I bet if we hurry, we can get out of here at 2:30.” Just once I want somebody to say, “You know, if you really want to learn this materials, I’m willing to stay until 7:00, how about you?” The question becomes, do you want to be good at this when you’re done or do you want to check the boxes and walk out of here knowing nothing more than when you walked in?

The most important lesson I’ve ever learned was while I was doing hospice care. Through that I learned the only thing that matters at the end of your life is that you loved someone, and they loved you back. When you work hospice you see people when they are the least inhibited and controlled. You see it both in patients and their families. Working in hospice care is about dignifying those moments as best as you can, provide comfort and care.

One message I want to give to other nurses is, “Be nice to each other. You’re going to be together for a long time. You’ll feel better about your career if you’re a nice person, instead of being defensive and placing blame on other people all the time.” If somebody makes a mistake, I like to say, “I’d like to help you do a better job. This was a problem for me once too, and I don’t think what you did is what you meant to do. Let’s look at how we can make this work better.”

Power Strategies: Courage, Patience, Integrity
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