I’m a nurse?

I became a Registered Professional Nurse on 7/16/07. That’s a pretty big deal.

I’ve been working as an ER nurse since 7/23 and it has been quite the whirlwind since.

A lot of nurses have told me, “Oh, nursing school is the hard part -after that, being a nurse is easy.” I have NO idea what they’re talking about.

Nursing school was a breeze. Sure there was the occasional difficult pharm test, but all in all, nursing school required minimal effort. I probably attended 30% of my classes at most. I spent most of my time sitting in Washington Square Park drinking smoothies and admiring the dogs in the dog run. If I was running late to class, I would just scratch the whole day, go to the park, and then study in the library during the evening. Sometimes I would take 3 or 4 days off just to wallow in my apartment and read Harry Potter. Sure, I had some very, very long nights cramming before my exams, but the only person I had to let down was myself if I didn’t do well. And I don’t mean to plump out my feathers here . . . actually, I do . . . but I did very, very well in nursing school. Honors and everything.

BEING A NURSE? That’s a whole different story. I have a patient who is mistriaged to my low-acuity area of the ER while they are actually having an acute MI? That patient is really relying on me to: a) notice they are having a heart attack, and b) figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do. By the way, that was my first day on the floor.

A guy who can’t breath well is relying on me to help him out. 103 year old ladies passed out in bed and unresponsive? Yeah, she wants my help too. Guy who woke up after lying in an ally for 12 hours after being assaulted? He wants me to act appropriately if he is bleeding internally. Guy with an allergy to penicillin? It’s pretty important that I not only notice his allergy on the chart but ALSO manage NOT to give him penicillin. All of these are situations I have faced in my few weeks as a nurse and I have to say, this sort of stress is WAY more real than bullshit nursing school stress.

I want to be a really good nurse. That’s the goal.
I want to assess my patients flawlessly, react with all the appropriate interventions, slide in an IV while the patient smiles serenely and asks, “That was it? It’s already over?”
I want to communicate with doctors intelligently and have them raise their eyebrows at my sheer nursing genius.
I want to react to everyone calmly and pleasantly, including patients, psychotic family members, and psychotic collegues.
I want to leave my shift feeling like I have completed every task, documented perfectly and still made every patient just a little more comfortable.
I want to stop caring that the other nurses think I’m a little weird – I did a good job and advocated for my patients – that’s all that matters.
I basically want others to be in awe of my skills. My many skills.
I would like to be a super nurse.

Right now, I’m lucky if I make it through the day without spilling a mislabeled urine cup on myself or exploding a patient’s vein with my IV ineptitude. I’m thrilled when I leave feeling like I have completed even 1/10th of my assignment. I celebrate each time I manage to NOT drop an entire cup of medicine on the floor. I approached a resident the other day to present my short-of-breath patient and ask for help. When the doctor asked, “What’s the patient’s name and how old is he?”, I just stammered and stared at my paper realizing I knew neither piece of information. On the up side, I managed to help my patient breath again.

I’ve got a really long way to go.