My philosophy of nursing: Well, it's a pretty basic food chain that starts with EMS. Paramedics save patients, EMTs save paramedics. In the hospital, doctors save patients, nurses save doctors.
I originally thought about nursing as a second career after I retired from the fire service. A cartilage tear in my wrist ended my fire service career early, but I had discovered emergency management, so I went to work for state emergency management for a while. Unfortunately, working for the state doesn't really pay a living wage, so I had to find something else. I went back to the original plan ... my fire service career was over, so I decided nursing school was next. Nursing just feels like a good fit for me, especially emergency nursing. Trauma, critical care, maybe even being a flight nurse ... these things are exciting to me.
My problem is that I get rather attached to people. I think working on the floor would be torturous, as I would get attached to people, and they would get selfish and die. In the ER, you don't have to worry about that as much. You see people for a few hours, and off they go.
To be serious for just a moment, I have just always felt drawn to helping people. I want to be useful. I want to make a difference in my little part of the world. I may not be able to make a great impact on the entire world, but if a little kid is less scared, because I was able to make him smile a little, or a little old lady feels more comfortable surrounded by the hustle and bustle of an emergency room, then I have made a difference. Too many people spend their lives trying to figure out what the world can do for them. This is something I can do for the world.
Michelle :)
Week two:
I was taking a break from reading my nursing text and read a article a friend posted on Facebook about a firefighter who died while running the Chicago marathon, and how the Brotherhood of firefighters instantly came to his family's assistance, and I found I had a little something in my eye.
Reflecting back on the Ethics portion of our reading (Chapter 3), I thought about one of the bigger things we need to be concerned with: not lying to our patients. In the chapter, it mentions the nurse being there when a doctor give the news that a patient is going to die ... to explain the big words and what not.
I am really concerned that I am not ever going to be able to maintain a professional detachment in those situations. If I find something to be overly emotional or really, really sad, I'm gonna cry. So, my question is: is that something I *should* try to control? I'm not talking all blubbery and ridiculous, but my eyes are going to leak. There will be tears. It feels like, to me anyway, that maintaining a professional detachment and not allowing any tears in a really sad situation would be lying to my patient.
Ok, well. Now I'm thinking about all the patients I've had in the past in EMS and the ones that really impacted me, and now I kinda wanna cry.
In other news, absolutely no one I have cheered for has won their game in the playoffs this weekend. I am declaring the NFL season officially dead to me and am looking forward to the Super Bowl party I will attending ONLY for the food and ridiculously awesome company I will be in.
Michelle :)
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