Sometimes you just have to surrender
Wow! We’re at the end of Week 5 already. Time flies by when you’re having fun. These past few weeks have been a whirlwind for me and I am so appreciative of my clinical coaches, nurse managers, NES, and coworkers on my unit who have been very patient with me. I am learning a ton and with the bustling action that occurs on my unit, there is a just a lot to absorb and so little time to decompress, debrief, and reflect on the events that have happened.
Within the past couple of weeks (sorry I haven’t been updating as frequently as I would have liked!), I witnessed a code, two RRTs, and dealt with an aggressive patient in which I had to call BERT-- the Behavioral Emergency Response Team. I also had my second progress review with my nurse managers, my RNCC, and NES in which we discussed what I have been doing well and areas of improvement. I still would like to hone in on my telemetry skills and recently, I have become more interested in care coordination so I told them that I would like to interact more with other disciplines such as social work and the physicians.
I have also become accustomed with the workflow and am comfortable with my colleagues-- including the residents and the consultants. In team rounds I am able to provide input without feeling intimidated and surprisingly they address me by name and ask for my input! It feels great to be included in the patient’s plan of care and beable to contribute to a common goal in whatever way I can.
More importantly, I learned that being on the same page with my patients and providing a listening ear is the best way to achieve the most patient-centered, optimal way of giving said care. It was especially hard when a patient’s family members broke down in tears and confided in me about perhaps considering palliative/hospice care. Those difficult conversations are not one that I do not like having, but with the support of my clinical coaches, we navigated through these so that all parties were satisfied with the interventions moving forward. It truly is difficult when you’re trying your hardest to keep your patients alive only to see that your patients don’t really want to continue fighting the fight. I still grapple with that dilemma, because in nursing school you learn ways in which to keep the patient alive, but they never teach you what to do at the moment when your patient wants to give up. There’s a fine line between encouraging the patient and saying yes, it’s time to let go.
