An Amazing Career Evolution: A Nurse’s Tale
Well, this is creepy!
It’s a photo from the Library of Congress‘ digital nursing collection.
It looks like a still from a Hitchcock film.
She’s going to the light….
Actually, she is probably going down to central supply for gauze.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Rod Serling stepped into view…
“Nurse Nell is about to take a step…into the Twilight Zone…”
Oh geeze, now I’m freaking myself out.
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I came across a blog post today. I was floored.
I have reprinted it here with permission:
I’ve come to terms with something recently; I have absolutely NO urge to get my BSN.
I used to think that I should, if I could and that I would. Eventually. Now the kids are virtually grown, I have the time, I could swing the funds and I dont want it. Im a bedside nurse. Always have been, with the exception of a foray into psych nursing and telephone triage. It’s what I love, when you get down to the core of why I’m a nurse. Its what I am good at. It’s what my Associate degree prepared me for.
The thought of writing papers and researching and comparing differing nursing models while dealing with the obnoxious topic of nursing diagnoses makes me comatose. (Good ol Sister Callista Roys Adaptation Model was good enough for me in school and it is good enough for me now…)
Ironically, I love learning! I read the journals, I love attending classes, and working… requires me to keep up-to-date on all the specialties. I want to increase my fluency in Spanish, take a class on Shakespeare, pick up a violin maybe even learn to play it, speak Japanese and, well, you get the idea.
But .I’ve no interest in managing a department, I respect those who can. Teaching is not one of my gifts. I enjoy the hospital environment; I’ve never been interested in public health nursing. I’ve never needed a BSN to accomplish what I’ve wanted in my career.
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Wow.
Sounds like the writer is pretty adamant. I should be so sure of myself.
And I was.
Back when I wrote this in September of 2005.
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So what changed?
I started blogging. Writing about nursing made me think about nursing. Really think about it. I started reading the blogs of nursing students. They were so excited to be entering the profession. Excited. I hadn’t felt that way in years. What did they see in nursing that I no longer saw? Why were they sacrificing so much to embark on a career I had come to take for granted?
I wanted what they had.
I would get that BSN. I only looked at two programs. I chose the University of Green Bay’s BSN-LINC program. To this day I can’t tell you why. It just felt right.
Of course, I’d take it nice and easy and enjoy the process, like your typical Type A personality.
Yeah, right.
Oh, I’ve enjoyed the process. But like Ike and Tina, I “nevah, evah do nothin’ nice. And easy.”
Well, it turns out I love research, am fascinated by nursing theories, get a thrill out of producing a perfect APA paper and think public health nursing rocks.
I’m such a nerd!
Bedside nursing is wonderful, but there are public health programs to produce, nursing research to conduct and new generations of colleagues to educate.
And maybe, just maybe, I’ll have something to contribute to those areas, as well.
*This blog post was originally published at Emergiblog*
What makes you a good nurse, a good mentor, a goo educator “, a good leader, and a good resource is not the parchment you hold but the skills you gain (even with or without a formal education), the drive you have and the personality you present.
A good education can be one too in you med bag, but an education is not always the key