Nursing This Far...

When I asked myself how I felt about nursing so far, I couldn't think of just one answer. Many different things popped up into my head as I began to think about the question. I think that after we graduate and go out into the workplace, whether it be right here in Kirkland or overseas in places like Africa, we all have the opportunity to make a difference in someone's life. How many patients are we going to be able to see a day? Maybe a few in long term care? Or if we work the emergency room, maybe 50 patients in a shift? Thinking about these numbers, I realized how many different people, from all walks of life, we will be able to see. And the fact that we can come into their lives during some of their most vulnerables moments, we'll have the chance to share the gospel and just care for and love these patients in some of their darkest hours. I think this is incredible, and I really hadn't thought about this until I started this year of school. I always knew that I wanted to help people, but never did I fully realize the extent to which I'd be able to do so. I believe that even if my patient is on their death bed, and I as well as the doctor know that there is nothing remotely possible to save that life, if I could bring them to know God and establish a relationship with Him, even if it was only for the next few hours they were alive, this, I think would be the greatest achievement I could contribute as a nurse.
Another thing I've learned so far is humilty. Not in the sense of fessing up to something I did wrong, although that is important too in some situations, but in the sense of being a role model. I am going to school to become an RN, to educate people on things such as diet and nutrition, proper activity and exercise, and stress management. How hypocritical of me to teach these things to my patients when not even I can follow them and practice them in my life. I think that one of my goals this year is to "practice what I preach" and try to incorporate what I'm teaching my patients into my own life.
I know that this blog was only supposed to be a paragraph, but when asked how I felt about nursing so far, there was no way I could contain it to anything shorter than this.