For someone working towards a psychology degree, mental health nursing seems like the obvious choice, but is it? Am I a strong enough person to handle working constantly with people with mental health problems and not be affected by it? I'm not really sure and I think it's something I will definitely have to give more thought to, so what about paediatric nursing? I love children. Don't get me wrong, I'm not always great with them, but I love them but that begs the question, especially with very ill children, how would I react if they died?
I'm afraid this is getting terribly morbid but writing this down is helping me to try and sort it all out in my head. Much like with mental health nursing, am I strong enough to cope with children dying around me? Now I know that not every child who goes into hospital dies, far from it, but what about that minority that do? Would the children that are sent home with their parents, happy and healthy, make up for those that would be lost?
Then, there is adult nursing, from A&E to surgery to geriatrics, there is a vast array of things I could do. When I was doing my work experience (back in the mists of time, before my avoidance of revision and professional procrastination got in the way), I loved talking to the patients, encouraging them and even just sending a smile their way. I don't think I'm a perfect person, not by any means, but I'm nice to people (unless they are rude to me and I don't have a professional duty to be nice), I love to talk and I can tell when people want to talk and when they don't (unlike certain taxi drivers who will just waffle awkwardness at you until you arrive at your destination). Would that make me a good nurse? Probably, but do I have the mental capacity to learn everything I would have to know to be a good nurse? Would my friendliness get in the way and let me get too emotionally invested in patients and would my colleagues be there to give me a kick up the proverbial if I did?
As I've been writing this, I have questioned my own strength of character, my resilience, even my ability to separate my head from my heart but perhaps what I need isn't something that I know I could do, things I know I can cope with, but something new, exciting that I would have to learn and adapt to do. I don't know, maybe nursing is the way forward but how do I decide?
When I went into nursing after sixth form, my mum gave me two bits of advice:
ReplyDelete1. Remember that everyone is someone's grandma/grandpa, sister/brother, daughter/son. Treat them as you would your own
2. Sad, shitty things happen in hospitals. But it isn't your grief to have. It's ok to be sad, but remember that the sorrow is not yours to have, but belongs to those who knew the person.
The second one is really hard to do. Getting attached to patients is difficult, and there are still patients that five years down the line I still think about and miss.
I genuinely believe that the most important thing for being a good nurse is a desire to care. But be prepared to have that desire to care challenged at every turn by officious staff, pain-in-the-backside patients, offensive relatives, understaffing and over-expectations. If you can survive that, you can survive anything!
Ever you wanna chat about it, you know where I am.