OUT OF the blue this morning, I remember how I once came across a comment about a female nurse who gives sponge baths and empties bedpans. Yes, we do those and “much, much, more”! Let me count the “much, much, more.”
1. After graduating from high school comes four years of nursing education, followed by the state-mandated board exam that nursing graduates must pass to qualify for registration as a nurse. The academically inclined can pursue a bachelor’s, master’s or doctorate degree, and later may choose to become a clinical instructor, professor, administrator and like career, as they please.
2. An RN (registered nurse) is a very vital member of the “medical domain.” Why?
(a) She feeds and takes care of the bedside needs of a helpless patient.
(b) She allays the fears of a scared patient and gives him/her emotional support.
(c) She carries out doctor’s orders intelligently and accurately, such as observing and reporting vital signs, administering treatments and medications.
(d) She prepares the operating suite for surgery and imposes strict adherence to sterility imperatives in the surgical field at all times.
(e) She prepares adequate supplies and
specific instruments for every procedure.
(f) She ensures the safety of a sedated person.
(g) She also does the pre- and post-op visits, ready to explain or answer the questions of an apprehensive patient. This is what peri-operative nursing is.
(h) In the emergency room, the nurse is the first one to evaluate the patient’s condition and render the immediate proper care, prior to the doctor’s arrival.
(i) Public health nursing is no joke at all. It takes a special kind of nurse to tackle the job. Most of the time she is on her own, delivering healthcare in some remote places.
Nursing is a multifaceted discipline. One has to know herself very well to decide which field of nursing she will be most effective as well as happy. What I have mentioned here are the few of the “much, much, more.” In this day and age, nursing is no longer limited to the female of the species. We now have a lot of terrific males who have joined the nursing profession!
So, I’m reminding you, she is not “just a nurse.”
She is a “many-splendored thing”!
—VIOLETA C. LABAYEN,
Vd54pc@sbcglobal.net