The Nursing World of a Model

I found this article on Scrubsmag.com written by Sean Dent..

“But first, here are some things to keep in mind when choosing a path:

• Being a student in no way reflects how your life will be like as an nurse in the workforce
• Some of the worst students make the very best nurses.
• Some of the best students make the very worst nurses
• Grades are only a number. Passing is passing. What matters most is what your patients think and feel about your care.
• Just because you could care for one, or two, maybe even 5 patients as a student, doesn’t mean you will be great at it as a nurse
• Just because you couldn’t handle more than two patients as a student, doesn’t mean you won’t excel as a nurse.
• Delegation is the bond that strengthens and saves your day, and your team’s day.
• You will ALWAYS be behind, get used to it.
• You will ALWAYS have charting to do, get used to it.
• The doctors are only scary, if you let them be.
• Respect is not given, but earned.
• You will never know everything, get used to it.
• When choosing between arrogance and fear- fear will save your life, and your patient’s life EVERY TIME.
• You haven’t begun to understand what tired really is.

Do you remember that moment as a student nurse where you just ‘got it’. You found a level of comfort that just ‘clicked’ for you. Everything else around you kind of fell into place. Even if it was only a brief moment, we have all had that “AH-HA” moment as a student. When the books, the skills, the practice, and the fear all meshed together and just ‘worked’. No matter how brief that moment was for you, it mattered.

Do you remember that same moment where everything just did not go well. You felt uncomfortable. You felt uneasy. You were ‘all-thumbs’ that day. You forgot your basic skills. You sat back during that moment, and after that moment and said to yourself, “What the heck?”. More importantly you had to ‘force-feed’ this moment to yourself because you knew you needed it to graduate, you knew you needed it to pass and become a nurse, but other than that, it was like eating nails.

What area of nursing should you pursue? – That area of nursing where you experienced the ‘AH-HA’.

Do you know what area of nursing is not made for you? – The area of nursing that was ‘force-fed’.”

I still don’t have my ah-ha moment, but the bullet points definitely helped me out.