#1

I was at a nurse residency program seminar today and it's a way to help new nurses grow professionally and to also remind us that no matter what difficulties we may face, there are people around to help us. For the most part, the day was relatively boring but it did help remind me of the bigger picture as to why I wanted to become a nurse and what being a nurse really means.

Unless you are in the nursing profession, it is really hard to understand what nurses go through during the course of a 12 hour shift; just the act of dealing with people and catering to their needs all day is demanding enough of a job and really, a lot of times I feel alone when it comes to trying to get some empathy when explaining the hurdles we have to go through each shift. Fortunately, there are fellow nurses out there who understand and that makes things more bearable. Moreover, when at the end of a long grueling day, a single patient says "thank you", you realize that all your hard work is worth it.

Being a nurse is great, I learn a lot and I am very proud of the work I do, I really believe nurses make a difference and that we do great work. Unfortunately, being a nurse is beyond easy and some of those hardships just are so unnecessary. I have great coworkers that are very supportive for the most part, but some are just really...not. =/ The nursing profession requires interaction with people of various positions (as all jobs do) and sometimes, a mere difference in position apparently equates to a difference in work ethic, attitude, and simple demeanor. And it is just frustrating to believe that despite all of us working to serve patients and caring for patients, some people still don't seem to understand that it may sometimes mean staying a little later than your contract says or setting aside personal motives for the sake of the patient at hand. It is frustrating to think that certain people work so hard to establish an environment of trust and care only to have that ruined by the next person the patient interacts with. No matter how big or small, anything we do as healthcare professionals (licensed and unlicensed) make a difference in the patients' experience at an institution and we need to realize that and remember that and put our personal needs aside once we put on that uniform and enter a patient's room.

I realize that the issue(s) that I brought up have been long standing and I am not the first to see this or feel this way, but I know that in the midst of all the tasks we much accomplish each day, we forget the greater picture of how nurses do not operate individually and until we remember that, patient care will continue to suffer and so will us and our coworkers. After the discussions we had today in the seminar, I have all these crazy notions that nurses, PCTs/NAs, PUAs, PTs, SW and managers can all get together for once and really hash it out and come up with some solutions so that we may all work together harmoniously and flawlessly and all our patients will leave the hospital with smiles on their faces. But who am I kidding? It's possible, but really...also very impossible. I'm a new nurse, I'm young, I'm naive in the profession and I still have hopes and delusions of what ideal things can be real things and I don't want to lose those notions and that sense of hope. I sit here and ramble and complain but I know it does nothing- but I want to at the least remind myself that I did not come into this profession simply to go through each shift for the sake of finishing it and then spending my career that way. I want to make changes, I want to make a mark, I want to make a difference. I want to help facilitate the nursing profession as a whole and to help make nurses' lives easier so that we don't leave each shift feeling like the world was pitted against us while we had to plaster a smile on our face. Nurses do a lot and its a really meaningful job and I want to continue loving it but I don't want to love it hating it.