young nurse

I've been a registered nurse for awhile now, which is cool, and I now have experience and continuing education credits and certifications and whatnots, and I know stuff. I've even branched out into three specialties - heart failure, transplant and peripheral arterial disease. That's a lot of stuff to learn.

So, I know stuff, I've done stuff, I've held hands, I've done procedures and a lot of things I could do in my sleep now because I've done them so much. I've worked five days a week for the last three years with tons of overtime and extra weekend conferences and evening training. Things that used to be so hard, terrifying, that would keep me up at night for hours and hours worrying over how to do them or what I would say, now seem totally old hat.

I had clinic today, which is a ridiculous way to follow-up with patients in my opinion, but apparently a long-standing tradition with medical clinics. Basically, patients show up, wait in a waiting room for a long time, for only a 15 minute appointment. A medical assistant takes their weight and blood pressure, sits them in a tiny room where they wait some more. Then a doctor appears (eventually) and may or may not listen to their problem and then scribbles something on a pad of paper for them.

My clinic runs a little different and longer because we are a multi-disciplinary team for severe heart conditions, including a pharmacist and a MD and sometimes other specialist like a surgeon or ARNP, but still, there really isn't enough time during that visit to LISTEN to the patient and do everything and assess everything the patient will need to live the next 3 months of their life and actually know why we are treating and what for and what the plan is. So, the 15 minute appointments are actually 30 minutes or more, so by the end of the day we are like HOURS behind. I've literally had clinic run 3 hours late by the end of the day. Maybe little family practice places where they are seeing sniffly noses can go day to day like that but we certainly don't do well with it.

I was giving a sweet little old patient some outpatient treatment today after their visit (another thing to set me behind) and as I was starting their IV they kept making all these comments like "OH, you did that SO well! Good job!" and just weird comments like that. I finally asked, "Were you a nursing instructor?" because, I don't know, it just seemed that way they were acting a little weird like they were watching a student do something for the first time, cheering them on, whereas I was like thinking "blah blah, IV lasix 80 mg IVP is 8 cc's of...borrring". The patient was like, "well, I am just so proud they are letting high school students into the nursing profession, because I know they are so short on nurses. So it makes sense. I'm proud of you for pursuing a career so early in life."

I kind of chuckled, and was like well I'm feeling kind of flattered that you think I'm so young, and I've actually been working at this facility for three years, and I graduated nursing school when I was 22, but working in the nursing field for 8 years now, but not during high school. The patient said something about how I'm still young and that he was still proud of me, even though I'm not in high school. It was kind of weird.

But made me think, I am glad I have found a career I really love. I'm glad I got out of college on time and am able to just enjoy working and learning. I'm glad I have experience now so that not quite everything terrifies me and keeps me up late at night. I'm totally burnt out already, but my coworkers have all gone through what I'm going through now and are encouraging. I have responsibilities, I get a paycheck, and I get to care for and educate patients and do pretty exciting things. All in all, not a bad gig. And I still can pass for a high schooler to people with glaucoma. Excellent.







ps ..k but seriously, someone needs to invent something besides "clinic" days. i was reading an australian report on heart failure clinics that visited people at their homes.... but figured out that wouldn't work up here with all the rural areas we treat in WA and all the gas money... . i hate clinic.