Nurses spend more time with patients than most other types of providers and have unique insight into patient care and the the healthcare system.
Not to Save the World, But to Care, One Life at a Time
A nurse ponders the question of what makes her work matter.
Illustration by Janet Hamlin for AJN.
The Reflections column in AJN‘s August issue, “To Care When There Isn’t Enough,” is by Alison Stoltzfus, an obstetrics nurse at Evangelical Community Hospital in Lewisburg, PA. Stoltzfus describes her experience volunteering as a nurse at a medical clinic in the world’s largest refugee camp, the Rohingya refugee camp in Ukhiya, Bangladesh.
The work could be overwhelming at times. The camp she describes is a place where human illness and suffering often far exceed the capacities of available medical resources. She writes:
Some days the people would throng me in triage, pulling on my clothes and begging to be seen, desperation and longing in their eyes. A longing that at times I had to refuse.
Every day I would ask myself—“How can one care in a setting like this, and make a difference?” What good was it to make a difference to a few when there were so many lives I could not touch and so many problems we could not heal?
One life at a time.
The story centers around the author’s efforts to use the minimal medical equipment available to […]
