It’s 00:43 and I’m between night shifts, and I’m having a happy dreamy night. It’s been a great weekend, and today was particularly great! It included: taking my dog to get his picture taken with Santa, drinking some of the world’s best coffee, and putting up our Christmas tree.

So, right now I’m continuing with the dreamy times (Grey’s Anatomy would be proud of all this dreaminess). I’m sitting in front of my dreamy tree:

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And drinking some dreamy coffee that was ground in my new grinder and made in a press:

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From one of the bestest dreamiest coffee roasters in the world!

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I really can’t wax poetic enough about 49th Parallel coffee. While the Ethiopian Yergacheffe shown above is amazing, their “sleeping woman” is quite honestly the greatest cup of coffee I have ever had in my life. And on order are two more coffees from them that are considered even MORE incredible. I feel like I’ve truly discovered a treasure…and I’m trying to decided whether I should share it or keep it all to myself!

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So, I wanted to catch up on a few things that I’ve been meaning to post about! First of all, I was tagged by Peter over at St. Vincent’s Hospital Darlinghurst. He asked about my proudest moment.

It won’t be a long answer because it is short and simple. My proudest moment was when I received the letter in the mail telling me I passed the RN exam. The size of the accomplishment crashed down on me at that very moment and I bawled. My last day of school, my professor saying she’d recommend me for grad school, and even receiving my diploma didn’t feel as good as that simple scrap of paper stamped “pass.”

And I’m not just saying that because it’s a nursing blog. It was a culmination of so many struggles. I’m still proud of me. Yay!

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Kim over at Emergiblog has been talking about clinical vs. theoretical experience. She put out a call for opinions on the subject. Disappearing John RN has already put in his opinion on the subject.

As for my education, I feel that there was a strong balance between clinical and theoretical nursing. We spent hundreds of hours in the clinical setting putting our lab skills to practice. In fact, I think the only way they could improve our clinical experience would be to go back to hospital training programs.

The issue I had with my education and clinical training is that it offered a Pollyannic and unrealistic. They taught us how to holistically care for patients physically, spiritually, and emotionally. The reality is that the hospital system only supports caring for the physical. If you have time to sit down and talk emotions with your patient, then you have time for more patients!

We work in a system that rewards technical skill over holistic care.

The other issue with the education we received is that they preach a style of nursing that doesn’t exist, and to be honest may never exist. That is, they teach us to be leaders of a team of people. They teach us to delegate tasks to those around us so that we may orchestrate a complete and effective care that (sorry, I’m sounding like a broken record here) cares for the patient holistically.

I think that nursing NEEDS to go to this style of care because as the numbers of RNs wane, we will be replaced with technicians that require strong leadership and supervision. However, I believe that this will take decades to occur because nurses push away the idea more strongly than they fight for nurse/patient ratios.

I, personally, went into nursing thinking I would be exactly what I described: a leader of a team of folks working to care for patients. I truly didn’t know nursing would be as it is–oops! So, for me, the idea of transforming what nursing looks like is an exciting prospect. However, many nurses went into nursing because they loved the idea of caring for patients: washing them, changing them, walking them (I often think we describe caring for patients as we would caring for a dog). To them, the idea of stepping up our focus and moving slightly away from the bedside is a slap in the face to the profession of nursing.

I think nursing will transform, but we won’t allow it to, so it will have to happen out of necessity rather than will.

So, to answer Kim’s question point-blank: I feel that my nursing degree prepared me very well, but it prepared me for the wrong thing!

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Beth over at PixelRN posted some ideas for blogging topics. This one stood out for me:

3. Advice for fellow nurses. Everyone loves to give advice, lets face it. As a nurse blogger, you have the ultimate soapbox!

OK, I don’t have an entire post devoted to the topic, but I did want to answer with my advice. And it’s simple! My advice is to RELAX sometimes. Yes, it’s a stressful, busy, scary, sometimes hopeless job. But please, don’t forget, it’s OK to be yourself, have some fun, laugh occasionally, look for the positive, and as I said:

RELAX!