Why I started this blog
Wife, mom, full time nurse, nursing student (again), and now blogger! I may have forgotten a few other things I do on the regular but, you get the idea…. The plate is full!
My hope for this blog is to bring information and awareness around kidney disease and dialysis as a nursing specialty.
Getting Through Clinical’s
I couldn’t find MY thing while going through clinical in the hospital. Nothing truly interested me but, I felt the pressure to do bedside nursing… I needed to work on my skills right?? My first experience was on a pulmonary floor… Educating patients on deep breathing and coughing techniques, using an incentive spirometer, or monitoring O2 settings for 4 hours at a time. Not for me. My second experience was on a GI floor… ok getting closer. Drain out put was cool, mixed with some wound care… maybe? Nah, I still didn’t have that spark, but I could see it as a starting point. Nursing 3 & 4 clinicals were more advanced and I got to see and do more. I was on a step down trauma floor, CVICU, L&D…. yeah I COULD do this but, something was still missing.
Finding My Specialty
We had the chance to shadow an out patient hemodialysis clinic in my last semester of nursing school and THAT WAS IT! I found my thing… my specialty…. or rather IT. FOUND. ME.
I toured the facility, observed the nurses and techs stringing all these tubes together, and inputting ALL sorts of things into the built in computer on the machines on the treatment floor. After the tour, I was able to observe a nurse training and educating her patient on his ability to do dialysis at home. I was sold on it before my last observation.
It had everything, a mix of nerdy tech stuff, critical thinking, plenty of areas to grow, and most importantly working WITH patients to improve their quality of life! I mean isn’t that why we got into nursing? To make a difference.
Don’t Settle
It was my last observation that sealed the deal. I sat with a patient during her treatment. She opened my eyes to a WHOLE NEW WORLD! A world where I could essentially have a role in saving a life EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. It’s the same patient census consistently… the same patients, on the same days, at the same times. Coming from a service background in the restaurant industry, this was it. I can develop a relationship with my patients on a deeper level, and truly get to know how I as their nurse can have a positive impact on their life!
I am glad I didn’t settle on a bedside role out of school because I felt the pressure to work on my skills. Dialysis has taught me so many skills that nursing school didn’t even touch on! So, here I am almost two years later. LOVING WHAT I DO!
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