Today I felt like I did at the beginning of nursing school. My first semester I was at Westside and a woman had been left on the bedpan for who knows how long. We went in there because she needed help and she was confused; she didn’t even realize she was on the bedpan. As the nurse was not very kind and not very gentle with her, I was by her side, holding her hand and smiling at her. That was all she wanted. She wanted someone to smile at her and be kind to her. She was confused, but that didn’t mean she deserved to be treated poorly.
Today, I had the opportunity of watching two PTCA nurses on the floor remove a sheath from a post-cath pt. They were not rude to the pt nor did they treat her poorly, but they did not go out of their way to think about her as a person. She was pre-medicated with morphine, as per standing orders. Then as they proceeded to remove the sheath, they applied pressure, and the woman was in pain. She held my hand, squeezing it whenever the pain/pressure was extreme. I encouraged her to take some nice deep breaths. She did. She breathed through the pain and the pressure she was feeling. I continued to encourage her every so often. All the time, the PTCA nurses were chattering away about their past experiences with removing sheaths and various things; neither really asked the patient how she was holding up or how she was doing. Later that evening I went into the room to take a BP. The pt explained to me how she had had a breakdown just an hour or so before then. I asked if she was doing better. She was. She started to get emotional and cry as she told me how much it meant to her that I was there to hold her hand when she needed it.
I hope I can stay the nurse that I am now, and only improve from here on out on my PATIENT care. I want to be good at what I do, I even want to become a PTCA nurse. But, I do not want to digress in the way that I treat patients. I don’t want to lose sight of how I would expect myself or my family members to be treated if they were in that situation.
2 comments:
Chels! That was one of my favorite blog posts I think I've ever read. It made me cry a little bit. You are exactly the kind of nurse those patients need. When Kimball was in the hospital, we had a nurse that made our experience horrific. Then when the shift changed we got a nurse that completely turned it all around for us and made us feel so much better. We were able to leave the hospital feeling grateful and cared for, as opposed to bitter and frustrated. Thank you for reminding me of that and thank you for being committed to compassionate service as a nurse! You are awesome!
I feel as you do about compassion for the people that you take care of. I work at an Assisted Living Facility and some of the girls I work with talk about the residents in a way that is not respectful as if these people were just inadequate "old" people. I like to treat the residents I care for as if I were in their position. I'm sure those nurses wouldn't want to be ignored if they were in that women's position. Anyway, you are a wonderful nurse and I'm so glad you are making a difference in the lives that you care for. Makes me so excited for when I become a nurse! :D
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