Musings of a Tired Nurse..

Even Pollyanna gets tired. Yesterday was a hard day, in many ways.

It started with the staff meeting. Our Director told us not to worry about the healthcare reform bill that passed. She thinks it will take quite a while for the politics of it to diminish and the real work to begin. I think we are all worried about our jobs.

After the meeting, I met with the student nurse who spent the day with me. Normally, it is fun to have a nursing student spend the day seeing what I do. They usually rekindle my enthusiasm for nursing. Not so yesterday.

Sure, she was interested in what I do, and how I do it. And she was comparing her skills to mine, as they always do. But, I always remind the students that I have a thirty year head start on them. And I do. Thirty-three years, actually.

I asked her where she wants to work after she graduates. I like to compare and contrast home health nursing with their chosen area of interest. I share with them the ways that home health can impact the area of nursing that appeals to them, whether it is OB or ER or the operating room. Or med-surg. I even get on my soapbox about working med-surg for a few years before moving into a specialty area.

Not so yesterday. She answered my question by saying that she would work “wherever I can get a job.”

For the first time since I have been a nurse, the new, graduating nursing students will not have a job already lined up. In fact, they are being told that they might have to work for an insurance company, “doing coding,” whatever that means.

The nursing shortage is not over. Nor will it be any time soon, as the Boomers move into their sunset years. The student told me that her instructors told the class that hospitals may need more nurses but they don't have the money to pay them. And so, they limit the beds they fill, so they will have the nurses to care for the patients they do admit.

I'm not sure that is the case. At least, not everywhere. I do know that, here in Podunk, there have been no raises for the past year. Most of us don't mind not getting a raise, as long as the cost of living doesn't increase. But most of us work because we need to, not just for the pure joy of giving nursing care to the sick and infirm.

As the day finished, the student was chattering away about what she saw and heard. There was the patient whose foley catheter was changed, the wound vac patient, the heart attack patient who needed labs drawn, and the ostomy patient who is doing well and was discharged yesterday. She was amazed by the variety of patients, and the work that home health nurses do.

Most of the students who come through home health during their clinical rotation like what they see. They like seeing patients in their homes. They like the challenges. They like the freedom: no staying put on a nursing unit in the hospital. We are mobile, we are resourceful, inventive, confident, and kind. We morph from home to home, being the kind of nurse that each patient envisions. Not an illusion, but a method of relating to each patient in their most comfortable way.

As I dropped the student off at her car, she thanked me for a nice day. I told her to keep studying, keep learning, and keep hoping for that dream nursing job. It's out there, it has her name on it, and it will be just what she needs to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled.

Just like me....