God administered a gut-check...

Last week I had an experience with a patient that started a wake-up call for me as nurse. I was working at Alvarado. One patient who is well-advanced in years told me at noon when I brought her lunch tray that she expected more service of me. I hadn't had the chance to get her to take her shower yet because I'd been working with other patients. She basically used a lot of rhetoric, pulled the age card, and talked with my Charge Nurse. I talked with the charge nurse later and apologized for my lack of service and the words I used when communicating with this difficult patient. Looking back, I still think I had some validity for what I said to the patient, but I also know that God was being gracious with me.

The charge nurse told me what the expectations of patient care were for my position. It was clear that I was not meeting the mark. However, I wasn't completely missing it either, this at least didn't break me, but I did feel crushed. It's difficult for me when I fail in my job or studies. I take it very personally and assume it reflects on my self-worth. What she said though, helped me to take inventory of what I really believed about my job and nursing in general. I will outline the main points that I felt God speak to me through her.

1. Nursing is a job: Simply put, someone is paying me to do a service for them. Whether it be the patient or the hospital, I've been entrusted with an important task and I am asked to deliver those services in a specific fashion. I often forget that nursing isn't only a compassionate service, but an actual job. I need to respect my employer and do the best job for them that I can. And the plus to this is that if I do this, following their rules, I know I will be worshipping God because it would only mean better patient care.

2. Being in a Hospital sucks: Patients never ask to spend time in a hospital. It's scary, lonely and often noisy or uncomfortable. Patients are woken up every 4 hours for vital signs. There's no way to get good sleep at that rate. Looking back on my patient interactions, I see that I really could have afforded my patients more grace and sympathy. I've never been in there place and no matter how much I think I know what they're experiencing, I don't.

3. Follow God, not the nurses: I often find myself sucking up to nurses by joining in conversation about the patients in hopes of making friends. This is actually illegal due to privacy policy. But more than that, it is unkind. I think that most nurses really care for their patients, but it is difficult for any of them to be gracious to the "needy patient" all the time. Some patients end up being stereotyped, such as a "psych case" or "drug seeker" or "needy patient." This isn't just unkind; it's unfair. As I already said, the patients here didn't ask to be in this position. Some may not have control over their own thought patterns, may genuinely be in pain or may be scared out of their mind which causes them to ask a lot of things of the nurse. Everytime I think about what God has called me to I remember Matt 25. He simply said, "I was sick and you cared for me." Nothing more. He didn't say that we helped the person get over their addiction, withheld medications they had a dependency on, reprimanded them because they were acting like a frightened child or anything else. He commends the sheep in that passage because they had compassion on God's people, just as Jesus did when He walked the earth. I want that heart to reside in me.

The culture of nursing is often two-faced. Everyone wants to be a compassionate healer. But deep down, we also want to have an easier job. Why should we have to expend emotional energy on someone we blame for their own physical ailments? We'll reserve that energy for the ones who really deserve it. But Jesus came for the sick, not those without need of a physician. I want to follow Jesus in this. And it seems apparent to me that He wants me to follow Him also.