Following my post several days ago here, I discussed the same topic on a message board I subscribe to. One response said the following:

Sean, as a nurse, I would think your job would be very nurturing and people oriented and you would be able to delve into the passionate side of healthcare; healing and helping people deal with sickness and sometimes even death. When I think of machines related to healthcare, I think of technicians and that people who do that kind of work should be of the more clinical and analytical sort rather than the spiritual or esoteric sort.

After reading this, I felt I needed to respond with the following:

I think it is a common misconception that a Nurse’s main duty is do “nurture,” “help,” “care,” etc.  In my opinion, it is one of the reasons this profession is being held back! The world still imagines us as sitting at a patient’s bedside, wiping sweaty brows and speaking angelic words. Then, when the almighty doctor enters, the nurse stands, listens to the doctors orders, says, “yes, sir!” and goes back to wiping brows. These ideas overly feminize the profession and marginalize it as a subservient position. Sure, it CAN be people-oriented, if there’s time, but usually there just isn’t.

I will give you some words that I would use to describe nursing: assessment, analyzing, technical, critical thinking, decision making, monitoring, procedures, emergency interventions, fast paced, exciting, invasive.

I rarely have time to actually stop and talk to/soothe/ease  a patient because the technical aspects of my job get in the way. You have to remember that nurses ARE the technicians in the hospital! We are the ones that set up, run, and troubleshoot all those fancy machines that you see in the hospital, in real life and on television. We spend countless hours learning this technology and how to interpret the resulting information it gives us–only to have people think that it is only our job to “nurture.”

I love having patients who are shocked at what my job actually entails, always assuming that most of it was in the doctor’s scope of practice. It always seems to validate my skills!

Now, nurturing, compassion, and helping are VERY important for a patient’s recovery. This is why, as a nurse’s job increasingly leaves these verbs behind, there is a big push toward family-centered care. This means that we encourage the family to be the one’s that offer the soothing words and a gentle touch. Nobody can encourage a person like their own loved-ones.

So, as you mentioned, the technicians should indeed be the clinical and analytical sort, rather than the spiritual or esoteric sort. But, the nurses ARE the technicians you refer to. This is where I’m finding the discord between spirituality/nursing.

There is one moment in nursing that I find more spiritual than any other event I’ve participated in. When a patient dies, the nurses and nurse’s aids go into the room. We clean the body, remove tubes, tie arms and legs; we gently, with more care than I’ve ever seen us give living patients, place the body into a body bag. There is a silence in the room, and we rarely seem to talk as we go through this procedure. The air sparks with electricity and is heavy with emotion. In this moment, I know I’m doing something spiritual and powerful…

I hope you don’t think I’m mad at you <eek!> not at all! I’m just explaining my position further. I hope you don’t take this response as an angry rebuttal, but rather as just continuing the conversation. I realize it sounds a bit harsh, but you’ll find that public image is a very hot-button topic with Registered Nurses. We’re always bombarded with comments such as, “It’s not THAT hard is it? All you do is follow doctor’s orders, right?” It’s nice to have a chance to discuss my job a bit here! Having that opportunity alone helps me find the spirituality in my job. So, I hope you’ll forgive me if I sound too harsh :)

My intention wasn’t to imply that nurses don’t, won’t, or can’t nurture and soothe. I just don’t think it serves our profession well to perpetuate these ideas as the focus of our job.

Is it odd that I wrote a post about hating family-centered nursing, and then one that supports it’s use! I wrote the following in response to a comment on my last post, and I think it nicely sums up my views on family-centered care:

Vanda, you sound like the type of person family-centered nursing DOES work for. When a family physically becomes involved with hands on care, it truly makes a difference in a patient’s outcome–please don’t ask for references, but I know they’re out there!

Families are great for helping with daily care such as washing, brushing teeth etc. No, it’s NOT necessarily a family’s job…however, if they want to be involved, that’s their chance!

Family-centered care doesn’t mean that your doctor friend from out of town gets to order a different pain control regime! LOL