“Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.”
Kent Nerburn
The more I learn, the more I realize I do not know. Is this the beginning of wisdom? I vacillate between a fire to devour new information, and sadness at knowing I’ll never learn it all. Is this more wisdom? Learning what is important, separating it from all of the other stuff.
I am so impressed and proud of my cohort – and of Regis students in general. I will not criticize other universities, but Regis stands apart, because one of our main goals in getting an education is so that we may serve others in the best way possible. Regis is very values oriented, and the standard is held high by our alumni. This makes me proud to be here, and reinforces my decision to attend this fine institution.
And speaking of fine students, I just read our co-blogger Mary Fiore’s final blog. She has passed the NCLEX, and deservedly so! She shares many fine preparation tips, and I plan to utilize many of them.
I had the pleasure of sharing lunch with Mary last June. She then introduced me to a cool shop in Cherry Creek, called “Ten Thousand Villages”. It’s a fair-trade shop, offering handicrafts from around the world. It’s inspiring to see how every-day and unusual objects are crafted into works of art, or jewelry. It was a fine morning, and a friendly reminder that there is a big world out there, beyond nursing classes and studying.
Mary & Colleen at Ten Thousand Villages
I also meant to include a photo of my clinic teammates, taken last month in a classroom at St. Francis Elementary School. (With a lovely reminder that we too are called.) That day was so fun, with the 4 and 5 year olds bouncing through the steps of school physicals.
Clinical Team at St. Francis Elementary School
I stopped by City Park on my way home from class this week. The view is awesome, incorporating city and mountains. I was surprised to pass a dinosaur in the parking lot!
The park setting is conducive to studying, daydreaming, and enjoying the Colorado sunshine (averaging 300 days a
year!)
This academic year is flying by as quickly as last year. Here we are at mid-terms already! We are finishing up Nursing of the Child and his family, and are mid-way through Nursing Leadership and Health Care Ethics. I continue to marvel at how these subjects weave themselves together in the mind of a nursing student. They are all equally important in the grand scheme, as we need the clinical skills for sure, but our practice is nothing without ethics and good nursing leadership.
Our clinical group at Children’s Hospital got to present our education tool. We had fun coming up with a teaching device for children. I’ll never forget chuckling in the hospital library, as we composed a song to help children overcome their fear of IVs. Brainstorming can be very entertaining! Or perhaps we were slap-happy because of the early-arrival, and 12 hour shifts. Our classmates presented their group projects as well. There were some great teaching tools, and I know some of them will be used at their clinical facilities.
Our Leadership class is employing group dynamics also. We are discussing delegation, conflict and cultural diversity. Ourgroup put together a “Sim”(short for simulation) exercise, utilizing mannequins and technology, to address the need for cultural sensitivity in health care. In our ever-changingand increasingly diverse world, examining this issue is pertinent and timely.
Health Care Ethics is a brain-expanding class, (especially at 6 pm!) and I’m glad to be learning more about philosophical theories and principles. It is interesting to see how man has been struggling with the same basic issues since time began. But as we gain greater technological capabilities, the need for ethical dialogue is increasingly crucial. Just goes to show that no matter how much you feel you may know about a topic, there is always a deeper level, or higher goal to achieve. This brings me back to my first thought, which is philosophical in itself, right?
