[NPInfo] My Reply...Back to Sue

[Dena]

I remember back in the '80s working 3-11, pushing a cart from patient to
patient starting at 9:00p.m., handing out a hot wet washcloth, a towel,
changing the drawsheet, putting a new pillow case on the pillow before
fluffing it, and offering a back rub to everyone. It was my favorite part of
the shift. Did I ever think I was playing the stereotypical handmaiden role
while I was doing it? No-- I only knew I was helping my patients relax and
feel better. Several years ago while working agency on the floor for extra
money, I fell back into the same pattern and the nurses were astonished.
None of them had ever heard of p.m. care before. When working the day shift,
I was shocked to find out that none of the nurses apparently had ever heard
of a.m. care or baths before either.

My girlfriend's 20 yr old son was in the ICU a couple of years ago with
bilateral spontaneous pneumothorax and was, appropriately, scared to death.
He later told his mom (a NP herself) that the best nurse he had was one who
gave him a back rub one night and then pulled up a chair and spent 20
minutes just talking to him. That was what he needed more than anything else
at the time.

I have often said that people go into nursing for one of two reasons-- the
art of nursing (the nurturing, hand holding, talking) or the science of
nursing (the machines, the numbers, the technical aspects). I'm definitely
the hand-holding nurturer type, always have been and always will be-- and I
will never apologize for it.
Dena Galler



-----Original Message-----
From: npinfo-bounces at nurse.net [mailto:npinfo-bounces at nurse.net] On Behalf
Of SusanAPR at aol.com
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2007 9:40 PM
To: npinfo at nurse.net
Subject: Re: [NPInfo] My Reply...Back to Sue

 
 
In a message dated 9/7/2007 6:57:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
shelbyhavens at hotmail.com writes:

<<<I hope if I ever have cancer, there will 
be a nurse who brings me ice chips and fluffs my pillow. I like that stuff, 
the intangible parts of nursing that make us uniquely who we are. I don't 
see it as bothersome at all.>>>



Ditto that.
I spent a week in a hospital not too long ago.  Maybe one nurse had the time

and inclination for "extras."  He was male, and without a doubt had a great 
handle on hte patient side of the equation.   I hated the other routines,
like 
being woken for vitals during the night, IV pumps that bleep endlessly, and 
those damn heparin shots, and nurses who let IV tubing dangle to the floor 
assuming the three second rule was okay not just at home, but in a hospital
as 
well....(not)..scary stuff.
But I liked the human contact.  The humanity was far from bothersome.
Susan



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