Nursing: A Science and an Art

I used to have this terrible perception of nurses. I thought that people who chose nursing were med-school rejects, those not willing to work hard enough, those too scared to be doctors. I used to think that.

I first became interested in Nursing as a career in 2004. I was in Mexico, where I fell in love with mission work and vowed to return again and often to help the people who I had grown to love so much. However, the unique opportunity to go as a high school student was just that, unique. While still in the Yucatan I began looking for a way to return. I decided I needed a skill, and since I'm not that strong, relatively, I figured it needed to be more scientific-based.

Each year the Archdiocese of Mobile sends a group of teenagers to Akil, Mexico to give aid and love to the people. Each year they take a "medical team". It usually consists of a doctor and a nurse, but in 2004 the Archdiocese was unable to send a physician, so they sent two nurses instead. While there I got assigned to work with the "medical team" and visit the people in need. I was so impressed with the special way the nurses were able to interact with the patients. The wheels started turning in my head.

In 2006, when I discerned that I was to attend Auburn University, I knew I needed to pick a major. Still on fire with my desire to return to Mexico I decided on Nursing. When I applied in 2008 I had a lot of doubts. You see, I wasn't particularly good at Nursing essentials like Anatomy and Physiology, and Microbiology. Still, when I got accepted, I felt that God was not opening up other doors for me, and this one was wide open.

With essentially a semester left in Nursing School, I reflect on my experiences and realize they have mostly been difficult. It is draining work, that is rarely as rewarding as the amount of effort I put in. It has broken me. Repeatedly.

Still, there are times when I do remember why nursing is beautiful, unique, and not just for women who are too afraid or too dumb to become doctors.

What do nurses really do other than empty bed pans, give medications, and take vital signs? I think it's a common misconception, that I myself bought into, that nurses are merely glorified maids, or essentially physician's handmaidens. However, I have come to understand and know that nursing is both a science and an art. The purpose of Medicine is to treat diseases. The purpose of nursing is to treat human responses to diseases. Physicians see sick bodies. Nurses see sick bodies, sick minds, and sick souls. Nursing is unique in it's holistic approach to healing.

Nurses diagnose. Did you know that? We don't make medical diagnoses, but we have nursing diagnoses which help us to see what's really keeping a sick person sick, and help us to make them well. These diagnoses go beyond "Diabetes," "Congestive Heart Failure," and "Lyme Disease." Nursing diagnoses look at, "Knowledge deficit related to new diagnosis of diabetes," "Ineffective tissue perfusion related to congestive heart failure," and, "Fatigue and poor self image related to lyme disease."

There are several nursing theorists, and each novice nurse begins to adopt her own theory for taking care of the sick. Mine is loosely based on the theory of Dorthea Orem who identified that patients "wish to care for themselves", and will have better outcomes if they are taught how and encouraged to care for themselves as much as possible. Essentially, "Give a man a fish, and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and feed him for a lifetime."

Nurses are teachers, patient advocates, case managers, researchers, leaders, and counselors. We fight for the rights and well-being of our patients. We see the pain, the fear, and the life in our patients. We help to provide dignity and peace to the ill and the dying.

As nurses we have our weaknesses too. We fight relentlessly with physicians, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, and lab technicians. We demand the best care and respect for our patients. We know our patients, and because we know them, we find it impossible to separate our emotions from a case. We listen, we feel, and we cry.

Some days I don't feel any of this. Some days I come home from the hospital and want to ball up and cry. Most days I do. More often than not you might hear me whining about my long day, my long classes, and my ridiculous assignments. But some days, every now and then, I remember what I am a doing, and Who I am serving.

I have chosen a profession where I have every right to pray with a patient. I get to hear what a patient really thinks and feels when the physician leaves the room. I watch as a patient finds out he needs open heart surgery, tomorrow. I give a two-hour old baby her first bath. I get to hold the hands of cancer, look into the eyes of pneumonia, and listen to the heart of end-stage renal disease, and I know that when a monitor flat-lines the soul lives on.

I may grumble, whine, and cry, but today, and every day I care for a patient, I am a scientist and an artist, and I am making a difference.

Fiat!