A Day In the Life Of A Nurse - Part II: HOSPITAL NURSING
This is one of the hardest writing assignments I think I've ever had. Trying to explain to people what it's like to be a nurse, and at the same time, trying to share with nurses what other nurses are doing. But before I get started, I want to thank the nearly 300 hundred nurses that submitted our on-line cyber-interview form. Your input helped ensure that I give a well rounded view of a day that typifies nursing. Second, I want to apologize for the tardiness of this posting. I'll offer no excuses. But I will have an article published weekly for the next three weeks to get caught up, one of which is a special article I want to share with nurses in hopes of inspiring a new passion of caring for the new millennium.
The December article was to be on a typical day in the life of a hospital nurse. As my colleagues know and many of you can probably imagine, that varies a great deal depending on the type of work the nurse is doing. For example, the typical day of an emergency room (E.R.) nurse and a nurse that works on a general surgical floor are quite different. Then of course there are the nurse managers within the hospital setting as well. So I'll spread the wealth a little to try to give you an idea from several clinical areas.
Medical-Surgical Units: Known to insiders as med/surg, covers a wide variety of units within a hospital setting. Often depending on the size of the hospital. For the purposes of this article I will include all types of medical (floors that treat with medications) and surgical (floors that treat with surgery) units. Some examples would be: obstetrics, gynecology, nursery, orthopedics, oncology, general medicine, general surgery and the like.
A typical day for a nurse on one of these units looks something like this: Reporting to Duty. Nurses usually punch a time clock and then begin receiving report from the off going shift. We do, of course, work 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Rounds are usually, and should always be made between the two nurses. Then depending on the shift, patients are prepared for meals, bathing, procedures, medications are given, teaching is done, patients are admitted, discharged and die!!!. Yes something all nurses (and doctors too) must learn....death is the final chapter of all lives. So we are there to comfort the dying hoping that no one ever dies alone.
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