Is nursing right for me
What is for me nursing (and what is not)?
This is very personal, almost intimate look at nursing experienced nurses who tried to answer the title question. It is still valid, although over a hundred years have passed since I first asked them to Florence Nightingale.
A long work of a nurse gives the possibility to touch many spheres of life and shades many more than in other professions. For a nurse who works in the hospital for several years is certainly not a dummy. This is the most commonly chosen profession after a strong inner need, often under the influence of different life experiences. It can be both a source of fulfillment, as well as natural.
150 years ago, Florence Nightingale in his "Notes on Nursing," tried to explain what it is for her profession. Her thoughts were inspiring to me, about the same thing, so I asked my fellow nurses. Their answers are as different as are the personalities of women who were willing to give. Some brief, disciplined, in points. Other moved by, aroused in me emotions that she was experiencing, working in a hospital ward.
There were also those in which you hear a cry for help. None remained impartial. Just as nursing cannot be indifferent to the nurse, because this profession filled life. Even if the first idea of it contained only a vision of a white apron, cap and charming "being" among the patients.
"The nurse - a woman in a spotless white starched apron, a cap adorned her head, gracefully moving between hospital beds. These notions of nursing she was fifteen, choosing a profession. She cared about perfect strewn beds, hygiene of their patients, competence in performing procedures, and then relieved to leave the hospital department, returning to normal life ... ".
"In the beginning it was a fascination with the beautiful dress and cap, which is probably the most dreamed. Do not go into a deeper dimension to this wonderful profession. "
"Several of my colleagues chose to medical school, I went, and I did. So I am a nurse on the case. Appointment I found later. Today, after eighteen years of professional work, I cannot imagine being someone else. "
The same conclusion appears in other situations. Nursing is a way of being and living. The secret is probably that it always brings something new. Nurse with experience twenty years writes: "Nursing is my field of life, which still discovering." That freshness, the ability of observation, skill analysis, continuous curiosity makes for each nurse is possible to continue to discover nursing. It is also constantly checking himself, "a workshop of the characters' examination, which is a must still take the top five, continuing development, to overcome our weaknesses.
The image versus reality
This raises the question of the problem of burnout, which is after all a serious threat to the professions "aid," "Sensatec" - in the words of Kazimierz Obuchowski at work "across the galaxy needs psychology of human endeavor. " Christina Maslach defined burnout as "a psychological syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced sense of personal accomplishment that can occur in people working with other people in a certain way."
Results of studies using Maslach Burnout Inventory shows that the most important element of burnout of nurses is always emotional exhaustion. Depersonalization usually reaches low levels. Nurses are often quite high sense of personal achievement. Research conducted by questionnaire AVEM show that presented in the work of most types of behavior A - Risk and B - burned out. Persons presenting Type A behavior is heavily engaged professionally, give the work important; they are perfect and cannot keep the gap with professional duties.
Persons presenting the behavior of type B - burned suitable work of little importance, cannot cope with stress, they cannot keep the gap with professional duties, easily give up and have a weak internal balance (he writes about A. Andruszkiewicz doctoral thesis "The SOC nurses a pattern of behavior related to working ", PM them Louis Rydygiera in Bydgoszcz). Analysis of expression of nurses seems to confirm that if there is "complaint," bitterness, they are related to the verification of a negative self-image of nursing.
"Going to nursing school, I was full of optimism and faith in the fact that this profession gives me fulfillment. I believed that I am able to, though slightly ill people to restore faith in life working with the sick man, responsibility, being a member of the therapeutic team - which was a serious and important! The reality proved different. Spell has been broken. The first duty hours, department, 30 patients, the bureaucracy, chaos, running about ... It is not the nurse I wanted. That's not my world - I thought. Only with time I developed a strategy of its own ... ."
"What is nursing for me? Profession underestimated by people the mission the dream of childhood, which verified the force. Not really the fulfillment of expectations ... ."
"Time passed, and I was I realized that I could not care for the sick as I'd seen it because I was subordinate to the doctor, who called the patient's condition and determine its needs."
Verification of ideas, a courageous confrontation, personal skill development, use and availability of help and support, flexibility, and, doubtless, personality traits are those factors which, although a long-term use in harsh environments will not allow to burn.
Profession liked no other.
The labor nurse cannot say one thing - that it is monotonous. Surprisingly, it requires readiness, clarity of mind and consciousness, that as fast as it can be experienced both doubt and lofty sentiments.
One of my interviewers instead calculates what it is for this profession, "painted" the words of two images of night duty. One poignant - when it would appear that the clam of the night, nothing happens - recognized the silent fears of his patient, who eventually confessed that he wanted to cry, and the family not proper, because it has always been strong. The patient got as quiet as the night the understanding and support. The second night duty brought great fatigue and tangible signs of aggression in psychosis patients after surgery. The conclusion of her speech did not surprise me, "Nursing is something more. After all, I want to help people, but may be for you and for me to danger " nothing more, nothing less. Certainly, many nurses will find this description of themselves and their patients. They know that nursing is not valued, well paid, supported, and yet it fills the lives of themselves and their families.
Florence Nightingale realized his vision of nursing at the front during the Crimean War. It was not just "the Lady of the Lamp" from Longfellow's romantic poem, but tough-minded and assertive woman. Ably benefited from his social position and connections to improve the situation of patients entrusted to it. With that in mind, I cannot resist the comparison of today's nursing from the battlefield. Living and working on the "front line,' it is difficult to defend yourself and fight for the rights of others.
It's hard to count on the decision makers who are usually busy counting money. However, I would appeal to someone close to the "back" - nurses, nursing watching from a different perspective, carrying out research work, with time and distance conducive to reflection and recognizing the problem. Likely to make demands and stress of what nursing is and what ought not to be.
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