It is only to be surpassed by teaching...to which I have given 7 years of my 32-year career. Today, I had two mothers hemorrhage. For any OB nurse out there, it is a nightmare. To any lay person, they cannot stand the voluminous amounts and colors of blood being birthed. While their baby lays in a crib, the life is flowing out of them. Their significant other is either asleep from a 'hard night' or they are on the computer or cell phone. I am cross-matching blood and calling doctors and techs and the blood bank. How dare they lay and not know of what is going on. How dare the doctor who doubts your nursing diagnosis. Lay the clots on a hampton so you can calculate the blood loss. Save all the peripads and laps and 4X4s. Get the methergine, the hemabate and watch the father lay there and put it on facebook and text his girlfriend. Assess the baby at regular intervals (peak assessment- new term as of today). Yes, it was tough. Charting (yes the infamous EMR) had to wait and be 'late-entried'. Yes my other patients were delayed and yes, I felt morally and ethically lowest on the totem pole because THEY were not getting equal attention with less emergent issues.
Teaching you ask......... try teaching high school vo-tech nursing and geriatric aide, grades 10-12, in a lower, socio-economic area, where only a handful of the TOTAL number of students I had, did I know had what it took. I had 5 lesson plans-a-night to prepare, five different levels of classes: Pre-nursing I, II, and III- and Geriatric Aide, I & II. I had kids who wanted to be something and I knew they never could do it. I had kids who, by the age of 17 and on drugs with two kids who desperately (though emotionally and socially they could not, even though intellectually, they could have) wanted to be a nurse. I had special ed inclusions. I had ADHD kids. I had roosters in my hen houses. I had it all. What made it worse was that my Principal was a playboy. I spent much of my time in his office with disruptive or disrespectful students than I did with teaching. He would come on to me after classes. BUT...I was not interested. I took my KIDS to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place wins in the state competitions. I had a classroom with a 3-bed instructional area I would spend hours in, after class with students. They were to excel; no one was to stop them..no matter who did them wrong, whose boyfriend was untrue, whose father was missing-in-action....it didn't matter to me. I wanted it for them and made them believe. It was hard because there is a fine line between being a parent to them, or friend, and being a teacher. I had a knife 'shown' to me once. I had pills offered to me more than once. I brought in cow's tongues from the butcher to teach the digestive system and about the fungi form taste buds. I brought in social workers, took them to the Wyman Park Medical Museum. I had them watch surgeries and made them dress in all white for graduation. I would even walk the bus row on the way to the nursing home to have them take out their hoops and piercings-not on my watch. And you know........they wanted it, craved it, and needed someone to tell them, make them, be the best they could be and LOOK and ACT the part. I will always miss them. Them and my Geriatric Aide students I also taught through a nursing home conglomerate. I would train them to pass the state's tough exams only to have them thrown to the wolves with 15-50 (yes I said 50) nursing home residents to care for. But I taught them character, chain-of-command and legal documentation. They were the package and I, their ribbon. I loved them all...high school and women and men of all vocations and cultures. Let them stand tall for they were exposed to what health care really is. Oh, and did I tell you that it was for three years straight that I took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the state, and that one year- I had a kid place 4th in the United States. Yes ALL those long hours were worth it. But students are hard to get out of your mind...they are an appendage of you. Your patients need your best for 12 hours, 8 hours and then you go home. With teaching, you are up until 3 grading papers and doing the next day lesson plans. On Saturdays you are grading papers. On Saturday nights, you pull a 12 hour night shift as a nurse to keep your skills and license up. On Sundays you sleep and, in the afternoon, you rise to have some time to breathe and reinvest your thinking. I was proud to show my own two kids something. They turned out great. God bless us all..................................
Teaching you ask......... try teaching high school vo-tech nursing and geriatric aide, grades 10-12, in a lower, socio-economic area, where only a handful of the TOTAL number of students I had, did I know had what it took. I had 5 lesson plans-a-night to prepare, five different levels of classes: Pre-nursing I, II, and III- and Geriatric Aide, I & II. I had kids who wanted to be something and I knew they never could do it. I had kids who, by the age of 17 and on drugs with two kids who desperately (though emotionally and socially they could not, even though intellectually, they could have) wanted to be a nurse. I had special ed inclusions. I had ADHD kids. I had roosters in my hen houses. I had it all. What made it worse was that my Principal was a playboy. I spent much of my time in his office with disruptive or disrespectful students than I did with teaching. He would come on to me after classes. BUT...I was not interested. I took my KIDS to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place wins in the state competitions. I had a classroom with a 3-bed instructional area I would spend hours in, after class with students. They were to excel; no one was to stop them..no matter who did them wrong, whose boyfriend was untrue, whose father was missing-in-action....it didn't matter to me. I wanted it for them and made them believe. It was hard because there is a fine line between being a parent to them, or friend, and being a teacher. I had a knife 'shown' to me once. I had pills offered to me more than once. I brought in cow's tongues from the butcher to teach the digestive system and about the fungi form taste buds. I brought in social workers, took them to the Wyman Park Medical Museum. I had them watch surgeries and made them dress in all white for graduation. I would even walk the bus row on the way to the nursing home to have them take out their hoops and piercings-not on my watch. And you know........they wanted it, craved it, and needed someone to tell them, make them, be the best they could be and LOOK and ACT the part. I will always miss them. Them and my Geriatric Aide students I also taught through a nursing home conglomerate. I would train them to pass the state's tough exams only to have them thrown to the wolves with 15-50 (yes I said 50) nursing home residents to care for. But I taught them character, chain-of-command and legal documentation. They were the package and I, their ribbon. I loved them all...high school and women and men of all vocations and cultures. Let them stand tall for they were exposed to what health care really is. Oh, and did I tell you that it was for three years straight that I took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the state, and that one year- I had a kid place 4th in the United States. Yes ALL those long hours were worth it. But students are hard to get out of your mind...they are an appendage of you. Your patients need your best for 12 hours, 8 hours and then you go home. With teaching, you are up until 3 grading papers and doing the next day lesson plans. On Saturdays you are grading papers. On Saturday nights, you pull a 12 hour night shift as a nurse to keep your skills and license up. On Sundays you sleep and, in the afternoon, you rise to have some time to breathe and reinvest your thinking. I was proud to show my own two kids something. They turned out great. God bless us all..................................
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