Life is crazy.
It feels like it has been forever ago, but it has only been two years since I began nursing school. When I started, I was interested in nursing from a technical stance, not a personable and relationship-y stance; I wanted to be a nurse in order to help treat disease and do chest compressions during a code.
Oh, how things can change in such a short time.
I entered nursing school not quite interested in the dedication it takes to become a medical doctor - however you quickly learn that nursing school takes just as much dedication.
I entered nursing school wanting to fix people, medically - however nursing school is not so much about fixing them medically as it is about diagnosing the human response to the disease and taking the proper measures to help the individual return to a functional baseline. Nurses {hopefully} help the patient improve medically, however their duties extend way beyond fixing their pneumonia or abdominal surgical incision; nurses are to respond to the individual's human response therapeutically.
Don't become a nurse because you think disease processes and CPR is cool. I mean you can, but know that by the time you are done with nursing school, your mindset will be completely different and you will continue to pursue being a nurse for different reasons. Become a nurse to empower your patients and to extent a loving and compassionate hand in some of their most vulnerable moments.
There have been so many moments within the four years of undergraduate studies where another college student or even grown-working adult asks me what my major is and what I plan to do after graduation, and when I reply 'nursing,' they essentially tell me that I will be making bank, or in regular-person terms, making money and getting rich. Well trust me, that isn't the case.
My sister did point out to me to too long ago, and on multiple occasions, that not only do nurses come out of undergraduate studies pretty much having a guaranteed job, the salary that nurses make isn't all too shabby even when you compare it to other graduate degrees and subsequent jobs.
However, after spending just a few 12-hour shifts as a precepting nurse, it has deeply occured to me that for the work they do, nurses are underpaid. Yet, in the midst of these nurses most vital and intimate moments, such as coding a patient or even offering wound care, salary is the last thing on their mind.
Do not misunderstand me, money is a very important thing in life; it feeds us and our kids, and it can show our true loyalty. But money isn't the motivation behind sitting with the patient in their most vulnerable moments.
At the end of the day, I am satisfied not by how much money is in my bank but how much love is in my heart. Cliche, I know, but true.
3. Being a nurse is just another job.
There was this girl I know who was going to college for a creative writing degree. Well, her life started taking different turns, she had a kid, and decided that nursing school would be the fastest way to a job in which she could properly care for her unexpectedly growing family.
Well, if you are currently in nursing school or know from experience what it is like to go through nursing school, you probably were able to accurately guess where this little mini-story was going.
This girl didn't get through nursing school, to be honest, I cant remember if she ever even started.
Moral of the mini-story, a four year degree to a job right out of school seems pretty tempting, right? Well, if you aren't doing nursing school for the right reasons and don't find an internal motivating factor to not give up on nursing school, you may not make it through those two brutal last years of the BSN program.
Being a nurse is not just another job just like being a nursing major is not just another major. I am by no means making a mental scale and saying that being a nursing major is harder than all other majors, for I can never fully understand the intricacies of hardships of other majors.
Nevertheless, I misjudged nursing as a career and as a college major prematurely and have surely learned many truths about this honored profession along the way. As I devoted myself to nursing school for the wrong reasons, I began to understand what being a nurse is all about; I truly have fallen in love with the profession since. I have become so much more honored to be joining such a noble and virtuous field and wouldn't dream of being anywhere else but here.
4. To 'strut your stuff.'
Straight A student, always being in the top of your class?
We got plenty of those.
Nursing school is like going from a small pond to an ocean - you may have been the biggest fish in your pong, but after you get relocated into the ocean, you are either incompatible with life in the salt water or you realize how big the ocean is and how small you are and you start to drown. . . even though you are a fish.
Nursing school is not for the prideful, and even then it turns prideful into more humble people [although there are those select few fish who continue in their prideful ways, and I wonder why they continue to want to be in this profession].
Nursing school has brought me to my knees on many occasions. Test day, something that used to be a glorious day for me started to turn into a 50% chance that I would walk out of the classroom and cry on the widow sill down the hallway. It is indeed hard to get out of the habit of identifying yourself and 'finding rest' in your grades, especially when you aim is higher than your hit.
However, looking back I can truly say that I have tried my best, and my grades still do show it. I have been given many truly personal inspiring opportunities and have taken risks and ended coming out successful. God has blessed me in so many ways, such, this success of graduation and receiving my BSN is like that of no other.
I had no idea what was about to come my way as I stepped into college as a freshman; God hit me with so many opportunities and like challenged me with many uphill battles, but here I stand, victorious because He never left my side.
5. Hardened-Heart Harry
My sister did point out to me to too long ago, and on multiple occasions, that not only do nurses come out of undergraduate studies pretty much having a guaranteed job, the salary that nurses make isn't all too shabby even when you compare it to other graduate degrees and subsequent jobs.
However, after spending just a few 12-hour shifts as a precepting nurse, it has deeply occured to me that for the work they do, nurses are underpaid. Yet, in the midst of these nurses most vital and intimate moments, such as coding a patient or even offering wound care, salary is the last thing on their mind.
Do not misunderstand me, money is a very important thing in life; it feeds us and our kids, and it can show our true loyalty. But money isn't the motivation behind sitting with the patient in their most vulnerable moments.
At the end of the day, I am satisfied not by how much money is in my bank but how much love is in my heart. Cliche, I know, but true.
There was this girl I know who was going to college for a creative writing degree. Well, her life started taking different turns, she had a kid, and decided that nursing school would be the fastest way to a job in which she could properly care for her unexpectedly growing family.
Well, if you are currently in nursing school or know from experience what it is like to go through nursing school, you probably were able to accurately guess where this little mini-story was going.
This girl didn't get through nursing school, to be honest, I cant remember if she ever even started.
Moral of the mini-story, a four year degree to a job right out of school seems pretty tempting, right? Well, if you aren't doing nursing school for the right reasons and don't find an internal motivating factor to not give up on nursing school, you may not make it through those two brutal last years of the BSN program.
Being a nurse is not just another job just like being a nursing major is not just another major. I am by no means making a mental scale and saying that being a nursing major is harder than all other majors, for I can never fully understand the intricacies of hardships of other majors.
Nevertheless, I misjudged nursing as a career and as a college major prematurely and have surely learned many truths about this honored profession along the way. As I devoted myself to nursing school for the wrong reasons, I began to understand what being a nurse is all about; I truly have fallen in love with the profession since. I have become so much more honored to be joining such a noble and virtuous field and wouldn't dream of being anywhere else but here.
Straight A student, always being in the top of your class?
We got plenty of those.
Nursing school is like going from a small pond to an ocean - you may have been the biggest fish in your pong, but after you get relocated into the ocean, you are either incompatible with life in the salt water or you realize how big the ocean is and how small you are and you start to drown. . . even though you are a fish.
Nursing school is not for the prideful, and even then it turns prideful into more humble people [although there are those select few fish who continue in their prideful ways, and I wonder why they continue to want to be in this profession].
Nursing school has brought me to my knees on many occasions. Test day, something that used to be a glorious day for me started to turn into a 50% chance that I would walk out of the classroom and cry on the widow sill down the hallway. It is indeed hard to get out of the habit of identifying yourself and 'finding rest' in your grades, especially when you aim is higher than your hit.
However, looking back I can truly say that I have tried my best, and my grades still do show it. I have been given many truly personal inspiring opportunities and have taken risks and ended coming out successful. God has blessed me in so many ways, such, this success of graduation and receiving my BSN is like that of no other.
I had no idea what was about to come my way as I stepped into college as a freshman; God hit me with so many opportunities and like challenged me with many uphill battles, but here I stand, victorious because He never left my side.
Ever met or watched a nurse in action and wonder why in the heck they chose to become a nurse, or why on God's green earth do they continue to be a nurse if they apparently hate it so much?
Don't become a nurse to get used to the everyday grind and become so heart-hard that you forget that these patients don't go through this everyday like you do. Yes, you have seen how many hundreds of cases of heart failure or diabetes, but they haven't. Your patients are vulnerable and need someone to empower them, no matter how bad their dementia or hospital-delirium is.
Heart is what puts the 'nurse' in 'nursing.'
Caring for people can be such a beautiful thing, but it is truly your mindset that shapes and makes the experience. Don't ever let your heart become hardened; stay true with love and compassion, because giving yourself away as a servant can be the most rewarding thing, if you allow it to be.
* * * *
20 days
5 preceptor experiences
3 assignments
2 blog posts
are all that separates me from graduating with my BSN.
how crazy is this life.
Don't become a nurse to get used to the everyday grind and become so heart-hard that you forget that these patients don't go through this everyday like you do. Yes, you have seen how many hundreds of cases of heart failure or diabetes, but they haven't. Your patients are vulnerable and need someone to empower them, no matter how bad their dementia or hospital-delirium is.
Heart is what puts the 'nurse' in 'nursing.'
Caring for people can be such a beautiful thing, but it is truly your mindset that shapes and makes the experience. Don't ever let your heart become hardened; stay true with love and compassion, because giving yourself away as a servant can be the most rewarding thing, if you allow it to be.
* * * *
20 days
5 preceptor experiences
3 assignments
2 blog posts
are all that separates me from graduating with my BSN.
how crazy is this life.
Happy Easter!
thxful to my Risen King for His perfect Blessings to me continuously.
xoxo - buizzy_elizzy