Is It Possible to Delight in the Work of Nursing?
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In a recent conversation I had with a very young nurse, she shared about her hope and deep desire to “be a good nurse.” I picked up on the stress in her voice as she described her admiration for her preceptor and her feeling of being overwhelmed with the steep learning curve during orientation. I couldn’t help but wonder how she defined a “good nurse,” and whether that definition was realistic or oppressive.
This prompted me to ask the question in my social media circles, “How would you describe a good nurse?” I wanted to hear from both health care workers as well as people who were not.
There were a lot of responses, but one that stood out to me from a friend who is not in health care was this:
“Delights in their work and does it with excellence.”
This stood out because I rarely hear nurses talk these days about delighting in their work. After all, I remember my own recent response to a good friend when she casually asked me how work was going. I paused as I always do when trying to answer that question. After a few moments, my response to her was, “It’s always hard to know how to answer that. . […]
