nursing stories Archives - Page 3 of 16

In All Nature’s Glory: One Patient’s Presurgical Ritual

‘Join me.’

I walked into the preoperative waiting area one morning, ready to begin my day. Standing outside my first patient’s bed bay, I asked through the drawn curtain if I could enter. Silence. I waited and then called out the patient’s name again. Again, nothing. I peeked behind the curtain. There was the patient standing in all of nature’s glory, arms extended in front of the window—eyes closed.

I stepped back and then heard her say, “Come in, join me.” I felt caught off guard, unsure of what to do. But I was also curious, so I went in.

The patient turned her head towards me and said, “Just stand next to me—the collective mind brings more energy.”

So I did. The view from this patient’s room showed a river running alongside the facility. Like her, I looked out onto the river. The sun was beginning to rise and the sky was a beautiful blend of pink and blue. I closed my eyes and a sense of serenity gently settled over me.

We stood together in silence for just a minute or two. Then the patient turned to me, grabbed her gown, and said, “Now, how can I help you?”

I found that I was smiling as I heard […]

Guest Author2021-10-27T09:46:54-04:00October 27th, 2021|Nursing, nursing stories, patient engagement|1 Comment

A New Nurse Learns Focus and Grace Under Pressure

“I entered this new chapter in my life running at full speed. But at nearly the same time, the world seemed to be coming to a full stop.”

That’s from the August Reflections essay in AJN: “2020: What a Time to Become a Nurse.” Alicia Sgroi finished nursing school and started as an RN in a Florida ICU in February 2020, just as the pandemic was starting to get a foothold in the United States. By June, her unit had been converted to a COVID-positive step-down unit.

Much has been written about the pressures and trauma of being a nurse during the pandemic. We know that it’s been tough for all nurses, sometimes overwhelmingly so. In fact, the original research article in the August issue of AJN is a study that looks at personal and institutional factors affecting levels of well-being and resilience among nurses during the pandemic, from staffing to support networks to personal resilience.

Rising to the occasion.

As a new nurse, Sgroi was understandably worried about catching the virus and also about having the skills to care for such patients. But as she tells it, far from discouraging her from continuing as a nurse, the experience taught her […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2021-08-06T10:41:37-04:00August 6th, 2021|COVID-19, Nursing, nursing stories|0 Comments

Finding Perspective In an Ancient and Fabled Landscape

“Negativity and angst dissolved. Silence seeped into our spines, relaxing our amplified neural conversations and untying cranky muscles. We were just two insignificant human specks surrounded by a massive, glacier-carved swamp; its deep bowl filled with the layering detritus of millennia…”

The above quote is from the July Reflections essay in AJN. We’ve been running this column for decades, each month a one-page personal essay by a different outside author, many but not all of them nurses.

The author of “Of Swamps and Pandemics” in July (free until August 20) is Pamela Sturtevant, a nurse in Massachusetts. She writes deeply and well about a simple thing: taking a walk with a companion in an ancient and fabled swamp during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taking refuge in ‘deep time.’

While the most frightening surges of the coronavirus may be in the past, and the initially bewildering and all-powerful virus has been tamed by vaccines and precautions if not vanquished, our world hardly feels more stable than it did a year ago. Smoke from wildfires 3,000 miles to the west recently tinted a sickly yellow the air of states in the […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2021-07-22T10:49:19-04:00July 22nd, 2021|Nursing, nursing stories|2 Comments

Writing as Another Tool for Coping as a Nurse

“I recall wondering where this process had been all my life. Of course, it had always been there. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that writing could be such an effective tool for examining, reflecting, processing, and learning.”

‘Like a girl playing dress-up in a nurse uniform.’

by hannah olinger/unsplash

At age 19, I graduated with an associate’s degree in nursing, passed my boards, and went to work in a regional hospital near my college, in the city where I grew up. My geographical radius was as puny as the range of my life experience. I feigned excitement about the new job, but I was overwhelmed. I knew I needed more of everything: experience, education, tools for coping. Eventually, I discovered one of the missing tools was writing.

I entered every shift with anxiety, certain I would walk in on a patient or situation I was ill-equipped to handle. At night, I tossed with worry. When sleep came, dreams became nightmares of IVs running dry and patients coding.

I had only myself to blame. As a teen, I wasn’t ready to decide what to do with my life. I knew nursing was a noble profession, and my parents nudged me toward a program that was economical, efficient, and allowed me to live at home. At […]

Guest Author2021-06-01T09:48:47-04:00June 1st, 2021|Nursing, nursing career, nursing stories, writing|0 Comments

Built for This: One NP’s Revitalized Practice

March 30, 2020, was the first day working at this clinic; it was the same day I was supposed to be returning from my honeymoon in Panama.

That’s from our May Reflections essay, “Built for This,” which is free for the rest of May (along with the entire issue, in honor of Nurses Month). Written by Janey Kottler, a family nurse practitioner and clinical instructor, the essay is about volunteering at a clinic on Chicago’s West Side, which was hard-hit by Covid-19. There she encountered families placed under impossible pressure and risk by the need to keep their jobs during the pandemic.

I think about the single mother and her two children I treated recently. The mother is an essential worker at a grocery store and utilizes her neighbor for childcare during work hours. The family’s neighbors are elderly: the wife stays at home while her husband is an essential worker, working on a factory line. They were grateful to have an income throughout the pandemic until her husband fell ill after COVID exposure at work. He has now inadvertently exposed his wife and the children she babysits.

[…]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2021-05-17T12:42:41-04:00May 17th, 2021|Nursing, nursing career, nursing stories|0 Comments

In All Nature’s Glory: One Patient’s Presurgical Ritual

‘Join me.’

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A New Nurse Learns Focus and Grace Under Pressure

Rising to the occasion.

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Finding Perspective In an Ancient and Fabled Landscape

Taking refuge in ‘deep time.’

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Writing as Another Tool for Coping as a Nurse

‘Like a girl playing dress-up in a nurse uniform.’

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Built for This: One NP’s Revitalized Practice

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