one rotation at a time...

Venting in my last post helped to extinguish some brain-pressure.... I don't feel nearly as suffocated as before!

My third and final rotation has begun: Community. Despite its 'fluffy' reputation, I am looking forward to a change of scenery - 5 AM starts and scrub-chic were getting a little tiresome.

Looking at patients from a community-perspective is very different from the hospital-perspective unit. I'm used to a band-aid approach, where we fix the physical problem - perhaps temporarily - but send them back into the same environment/context that caused/exacerbated the ailment in the first place. It's like looking at patient care from either an upstream (community) or downstream (hospital) approach. Very interesting.

My instructor is a highly intelligent woman who teaches from a Masters/Nurse Educator perspective. Nothing is as simple as Diagnosis X = Treatment Y. Everything is interrelated, connected, part of a larger web of health. Her lens of nursing and healthcare is definitely based on a higher-level of thinking, which for me, is exciting and challenging. It's a glimpse into advanced education - and although nursing, a road I am still strongly considering.

So perhaps all nursing hope is not lost? I suppose only time will tell.... :)

D.

honesty.

Again, it has hit me in the face that I really suck at keeping up with blogging. However, I've been having a lot of thoughts lately - big ones, scary ones - and I feel like the best way for me to sort them out is to write them here. So I'm back!!

When fall came around, I was giddy with anticipation. 3rd year clinical - when nursing begins to become real. Acute conditions. Independence. Critical thinking. Life and death. I was looking forward to the rotations ahead and patient variety. Moms and babies, acute medicine, community. All very different, yet very full of exciting potential.

Fast forward to now. 10 of 15 weeks done and I'm still waiting to feel that spark I once had. I feel restless, bored. My mind is working overtime, keeping me awake at night. I'm just not feeling it. I countdown the hours until my shift is done, the shifts until my week is done. I anticipate weekends like no other, and need to make a conscious effort to complete clinical-related research.

It's not that I feel 'above' tasks like bathing, pericare, and toileting. Not at all. I just figured that by the tail-end of my degree I'd be putting my noggin' to some good use and not just stifling my gag reflex. My fuse is getting shorter with being at the bottom of the totem pole, being bossed by other professionals, and having physicians ignoring my presence simply because they wear a white coat.

I was looking forward to graduating as a RN, to feeling content with my degree and its benefits, and to working as a nurse, happily ever after. My long-term plan was to either A. move up the nursing ladder, meet someone, travel, have a family, yada yada yada or B. jump ship and move to higher education after a few years, assuming I still had only myself to worry about.

Instead, I am convincing myself to stay-put until graduation. I've met someone who makes me believe that both a relationship and medicine are possible. I've sketched out a plan to get to the MCAT. I dream about being a doctor.

I am really hoping these feelings are at least in part due to the fact that I am not in theory semester.  Something about the routine and challenge of classes is exactly what I need. It's challenging, makes me think. I've wrestled with thinking that I could be content with a job I tolerate, but a life I love. However, I have this nagging suspicion these feelings may continue to resurface if I don't at least give it a shot.

GAH - my life plan is teetering off the direction I had so carefully laid out. Not at all in a negative sense.... but a frighteningly new way I had not planned for. One where I could work towards my craziest dreams while having a life I love with the people I care about.

For now, I am still in my BScN with another year & 5 weeks to go. I'm in it to the end. But perhaps it's only the end of the nursing road and the beginning of something more?

D.