February has been a terrific month so far. We are mid-way through our clinical rotation at Rose. The experience has touched me – I am reminded again and again why I want to keep nursing. I am humbled daily, as people entrust their health and recovery to us. I also love seeing the connection between what we read in our textbooks and discuss in class, to actual patients with real maladies. And even though our technology is constantly being upgraded and refined, we humans still come with the same parts we had thousands of years ago. We can now replace a lot of parts, but we are still uniquely individualized hearts and souls. This alone makes nursing fascinating. Every single patient comes with their own characteristics, life situations, and family dynamics.
I read in “How to Think like Leonardo Da Vinci” (Michael Gelb, 1998) that Da Vinci embraced the idea of connessione – finding connections between everyone and everything. This is also a fundamental nursing concept – finding a connection with our patients and building a trusting relationship. It also involves trusting relationships with co-workers. We are interdependent in taking care of our patients. It was a joy to see how nurses, CNAs and housekeepers work together at Rose; efficiently and with a great balance of independence and camaraderie.
Our Nursing Roles class is discussing advocacy, a primary nursing responsibility. I saw this in action every day at clinicals. Our pharmacy class is moving from cardiac medications to diabetes and anti-neoplastics. Seems like there is a new drug out there every day! I’m sure by the time we graduate next year, there will be a whole textbook worth of new meds. In Med-Surg I, we are covering cardiac, pre and post-op care. This all ties in with pharm. It helps that so much of our study schedule is in synch. The lessons in one course reinforce the lessons in others. This is truly helpful when there are so many new medications and symptoms to learn. Somehow we will retain it, I am sure!
I mentioned last time that I would be increasing my exercise. I am going to the gym in the evenings, hopping on the treadmill, and reading whichever textbook I can prop up! We also went for a brisk (in pace and temperature) walk to our neighborhood wetlands. It feels great to get the blood circulating, and oxygenates my brain, to make room for more facts!
Spring break is coming up. Hard to believe, as it seems we just took down our Christmas lights. I’m sure Spring will be right around the corner!
Markedly well written piece!