Nursing is an art...

Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation, as any painter's or sculptor's work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God's spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.

          ~Florence Nightingale

     This week is Nurses" Week. It is always celebrated in May to coincide with Florence Nightingale's birthday. Happily, it also coincides with Mother's Day. For me, that means a celebration of both my life's avocations. While I am retired from professional nursing, I remain a nurse in my heart and will to the day I die. It is a tough profession-- requiring quick wits, a strong back, incredible tact and patience and most of all, love for the work. I would like to honor my chosen profession with some blogs on the subject. Today I'll tell the tale of my own journey as a nurse. Please note that my own experience was hospital-based. There are many, many nurses working in non-hospital based jobs, or jobs within a hospital setting that are not at the bedside. And there are ever-increasing numbers of men who choose nursing. It is all change for the better for our career and most of all, for our patients!

     I grew up in an era when there were what I call The Big Four profession-wise for women:  Secretaries, Hairdressers, Teachers and Nurses. Back then, very few women worked outside the home unless the family was needy financially. Professional engineers, physicians, lawyers, accountants, bankers, etc were mostly men. Perhaps it was this environment that gave me the inner nudge, but honestly I think it was probably God tapping me on the shoulder and I was young enough to listen. I only know that from a very early age I have always wanted to be a nurse. Or as I used to tell job applicants I was interviewing, "I didn't chose nursing, nursing chose me."

My UM graduation photo-- one of the last times I wore the nursing cap!

     I was educated at The University of Michigan School of Nursing. Fortunate to live in a state that had one of the top five schools of nursing in the country at the time, I applied and was very grateful to have been accepted. My education there was stellar... I went in a somewhat shy, unsure kid and emerged a woman who "thought like a nurse". Though my skills were green, I knew how to think and how to assess a patient and I also knew I had a lot to learn. The first year or so out on my own was one of tremendous learning. I carried books with me to work and kept a pocket medication reference with me at all times. It was terrifying and exhilarating and wonderful and awful... and I absolutely hated some of it and loved other parts of it.

     One of the things I loathed was Med/Surg nursing. Despite my best efforts I simply couldn't enjoy caring for all those old or sick people (imagine... a nurse saying she doesn't like dealing with sick people!). When I was allowed to transfer to OB that all changed. I loved it and from that day forward I stayed an OB nurse. A lot of OB nurses prefer the labor/delivery setting, others prefer the post partum setting, and still others prefer to work with the babies. I loved all three, and worked in all three at some point or other in my career, though I never ventured into the Neonatal ICU area... that still terrifies me!

     Bedside nursing in Labor/Delivery was my favorite. Except during times of very high patient loads, I was able to focus on one woman and her needs. Following that woman through her birth experience to delivery, helping her during the birth and immediately afterwards was something so rewarding it is hard to put into words. During the birth experience a woman's physical status can change in an instant, so it requires constant vigilance and assessment by the nurse. Small changes in her affect, in her vital signs, in the fetal heart tracing can be of huge importance. Staying sharp and yet reassuring to the woman requires a lot of brains and emotional maturity. Dealing with nervous fathers-to-be (and of course the absolute worst creature-- the Grandmother-to-be!) requires people skills to be fine tuned. When I got all that right and the result was a healthy baby and a grateful family, it was awesome.

     I didn't always get it right. There was the family that I found out later referred to me as The Barbarian. My people skills the day I cared for them must have been rusty or my antenna wasn't up all the way... I also delivered a few babies myself because I missed the signals of imminent delivery and didn't get the physician there on time. And there was one time when I did not react to a decline in the fetal heart tracing fast enough... and that one haunts me still.  I have many, many stories I could tell here-- any time you deal with people when they are at their most vulnerable you will see things that make a mark on your heart. Some are funny, others poignant. I will tell a few of those stories in the next few blogs, in the hope of helping you understand why I love nursing so much.

This is me in my later career in my office at Wishard Hospital

     There are a lot of nurses out there-- some are actively working, some have moved on to other careers because the demands of the job were too much, and some are retired like me. If a nurse has ever had an impact on your life or the life of someone you love (and I suspect that is every one of you!) please remember that this week and say thanks to the nurses you know. They are hard working, caring people who give so much of themselves at work!