Tonight is my last shift being on orientation at work. It has caused me to reflect on whether or not I feel ready for that…and I mostly do. I will never know everything and I will continue to always ask questions, but I have to start somewhere.
Nursing is not exactly what I thought it would be when I decided to pursue that career path. After I started I quickly learned "the truth about nursing" that nurses seemed to often complain about - food and bathroom breaks are rare, you get yelled at, you're going to make at least one medication error, and you'll never have enough time to spend the quality time with your patients that you would like to. But I have discovered more important truths about my job.
There is a lot of technical and analytical work that goes into nursing. We have to make sure all the lines and tubes are going the right places with no kinks or bubbles or leaks, verify that the correct medication is infusing at the appropriate dose and rate, we change surgical dressings, monitor for and prevent infections, and a hundred other nursing "tasks." At work I have to observe my patients carefully to make sure our mommies aren't having hemorrhage complications after delivery, or that our babies aren't silently gagging from fluid that hasn't cleared their lungs or stomach. You have to be aware of a lot of things - we are watching and observing for more things than our patients probably realize - but there is so much more to our job than that. I would even suggest that while these things are critical nursing skills and what we are educated at school for, that is not the drive behind our profession.
There are no words to describe the looks on a parent's face when they get to see their newborn for the first time or hear their newborn cooing sounds. Grandparents come in beaming and brag to the nurses that the birth of their grandchild introduced the cutest kid on the unit award. Siblings get to hold their new brother or sister and stare intently into their faces as if they don't really understand who this little being is and where they came from, but all they want to do is cuddle and kiss it anyway.
And then there are the not so fun things, like watching a fetal monitoring strip during labor that indicates severe fetal distress before you finally hear "Stat section for vasa previa." Babies get transferred to the NICU. Mothers hemorrhage or seize. Sometimes the babies don't make it.
People don't plan for things like that.
Nurses work within a realm of very personal, private, and often emotional human experience. We take care of people on their good days and on their worst days, and when they find themselves in a state of vulnerability from which they cannot escape. There are moments of joy, but also moments of fear from the unknown. My work as a nurse is deeply rooted in these facets of the "human experience."
Even though I am a new nurse with little experience, I would bet that there are seasoned nurses that agree.
I am a little hesitant to share thoughts about this that are so personal to me. Instead, I do want to share a few videos that I think capture the essence of my experience in nursing. These are the things that my heart is full of.
Nurses Federation from Jason Wingrove on Vimeo.
Ward Miles - First Year from BenjaminScot on Vimeo.
"These mortal challenges allow us and our Heavenly Father to see whether we will exercise our agency to follow His son. Yes, weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning… Let us not give up on the Lord. His blessings are eternal. "
In all these things, in all our experiences, we are all children of God getting to experience humanity together. That is what my job is all about. It is intensely personal and sacred. There is always an opportunity to reach out and serve. This work draws me closer to my Heavenly Father and Savior.
This, my friends - this is nursing.
