“What qualities do you think make a ‘good nurse?’”
“Basic level stuff, you cannot be afraid of blood or specimens. Think of anything that comes from your body as a specimen. You have to have the stomach for those things.
“You have to be able to work long hours. It’s very physically and emotionally draining. You have to be okay with not being with your family for some holidays. That’s just a start, and the only reason I include those things is because if you’re complaining about those things, you’re not going to make it to the deeper stuff.
“You have to be able to advocate for your patients. The number one thing in nursing is that you advocate for your patients. Working in a hospital, you have a team of doctors who have to cover different services. Especially if you work night shifts, you have the on-call doctor who really doesn’t know your patient. It’s up to the nurses who work in that specific unit, who knows how things go in that unit, to make sure the patient is safe. You really have to know how to advocate for your patient and sometimes that just comes with years of experience.
“You have to care. You can’t just go in, take care of patients, then disconnect and go home. Nursing is not for a paycheck. We do a lot of things and if you’re just doing it for the paycheck, then it’s really not worth it because of how much stress it can bring you. So you really have to care about what you’re doing and you have to be passionate about it.
“You have to have a backbone. You can’t be argumentative, but you have to be able to stick up for yourself. Some nurses just take the orders and go with it and do what they’re told, but if you recognize something that’s not right or something that you know is against patient wishes, you have to be able to stand up. And that just goes along with advocacy, really.
“Being able to speak up and having good communication is key. If a team from cardiology is coming to visit my patient and talking about cardiology things on a level that I didn’t learn because I am obstetrics, I have to be able to speak up and say ‘I’m sorry, can you explain that to me and why that is important here.’ I don’t have a problem doing that.
“So, effective communication, advocacy for your patient, actually caring, and understanding your resources is huge. Understanding the circumstances that different patients are in and that not everybody has the same level of opportunity or background and being able to know how to get the proper resources for them is key. That makes a very good nurse.”
“How has the field changed, if at all, over the course of your career?”
“We have sicker patients. We deliver and resuscitate babies that are younger now because of advanced technology. When I started working there, we only offered resuscitation to babies that were born prematurely at 24 weeks, and now we resuscitate at as low as 23 weeks. Because of the past few years of the pandemic, we are truly short-staffed. It’s definitely changed a lot of things. Some things that were done in person are now being done virtually.
“With research, there are always little changes. There are always ongoing studies. In terms of patient care, the patient acuity has gotten higher. That just means that the level of care they require or how sick they are. They’ve gotten sicker and the patient load has gotten higher and staffing is even shorter now.”
“What is your favorite part about being a nurse?”
“Being a part of the birth, absolutely. The moment they meet their baby. Watching the dads cry. The built-up emotion that you cannot explain the first time you meet your child is just so intense that all you can do is cry it out, and witnessing that in the room just does it for me. I don’t get to do a lot of deliveries now just because I’m the charge nurse a lot, but I will go when it’s time to deliver.
“Even just communicating with the patients when they come in. Labor and delivery is a floor where patients—not just women, since not all patients that come in and have a baby identify as women—feel very vulnerable. It’s very personal and very private, what happens during the course of your stay there, so I like to have conversations with my patients and make them feel more comfortable. I like to get really familiar with patients and have fun conversations with them and make it a more friendly interaction instead of just nurse-patient. You want to be comfortable with your nurse and be able to trust your nurse.
“So I just enjoy patient interaction and being there when they have their babies. Them meeting the kid is just the best part. I would say it’s the prize.”
About The Author
Oliver Ewy is currently a junior at Northwood High School. He has an interest in various scientific fields and would like to work in medicine in the future.
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