I recently started working again after 14 years away from hospital nursing. My job is at an urban hospital that is a Level 1 trauma center. It is a teaching hospital, so the place is crawling with all manner of students. I work night shifts, though, so I see very few of them. What I do see is a lot of patients who range from not ill at all to catastrophically ill with all type of diseases.
Many of my patients are the ones that are prone to being shunned in our society. I have cared for those who are addicted to drugs, those who are experiencing homelessness, those who are withdrawing from alcohol, those with a wide assortment of sexually transmitted diseases, those with disabling mental health diseases, etc. This is life in a hospital that takes the sickest patients of its city.
I was also offered a job at a suburban hospital, but declined it. It would have been less hours, more money, and closer to home. But I didn't take it because I would have had to give chemotherapy, the manager offered me the position because I "seemed nice," and it just isn't what I do. I chose the harder path. But it is the path that stirs up the better parts of me.
This awakening of the bedside nurse has combined with other influences to compel me to write again. The other sources of inspiration are Mary Oliver, Makoto Fujimura, and The Scrappy Farmer. Mary Oliver's poems remind me who I am and who I hope to be. She invites me to slow down, breath deeply, and seriously embrace my joy. Her writing calls to my long-neglected poet within. She is an older sister: mirroring, beckoning, encouraging me.
Makoto Fujimura's paintings and words shift and sift what is within me. His paintings have long captured my imagination. His recent book, Art and Faith: A Theology of Making is paradigm shattering and permission to rest and recognize redeeming broken things as art.
The Scrappy Farmer is a fabric artist, creating extraordinary works out of bits of cotton. I have the privilege of knowing her personally and I have no greater cheerleader for my writing. Anytime Scrappy Farmer can encourage me to write, she does so.
This month marks 20 years since I graduated nursing school. In the healthcare context, that makes me a very old dog. My extended break from working in a hospital setting made it difficult for me to re-enter the workforce. Most facilities think a nurse who hasn't worked in a hospital within the past year is lacking basic competencies. Not working for fourteen years? No travel agency would accept me. The hospital I work for made me go through a fellowship program, to be sure I am a safe provider. In short, the nursing profession thinks it is incredibly hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
My transition back has been very smooth, though. The biggest hurdle has been computerized charting. When I left bedside nursing I was still using paper charts. But because I am familiar with how computers work, and I already knew how to chart, it really hasn't been that difficult to learn. Many of the "new" drugs aren't new to me because I have kept up with continuing education, even beyond my state board of nursing's requirements. Because I have spent the years in between hospital gigs learning and taking care of medically complex children, I have been continuously learning new tricks.
Perhaps the problem isn't the age of the dog (or nurse), but how long it has been since it learned its last trick. Once you quit learning, it can be difficult to start again. I'm glad I didn't stop learning how computers work, how to communicate in English, what new therapies and medications are available, about genetic disorders, etc. I have no idea how long I will work as a clinical nurse. I can't predict how long I will write. But I do know that I am proof that you actually can teach an old dog new tricks. It's just much easier if the dog has been continuously adding stunts.
Keep learning.
And don't do drugs!!
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