{"id":1022,"date":"2023-03-16T09:45:21","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T07:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uef.fi\/nursingscience\/?p=1022"},"modified":"2024-01-14T00:37:28","modified_gmt":"2024-01-13T22:37:28","slug":"career-from-my-first-thoughts-about-nursing-roles-to-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uef.fi\/nursingscience\/2023\/03\/16\/career-from-my-first-thoughts-about-nursing-roles-to-date\/","title":{"rendered":"Career: From my first thoughts about nursing roles to date"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
My blog has its genesis in my memories when I performed my first role as a night-shift hospital superintendent during the year when I had finished my nursing bachelor\u2019s degree. At least at first, although overwhelming I found the whole exercise to be interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I purposely start-off with a poem \u2013the acts in the poem are all taken from \u201cmy initial thoughts of what nurses do\u201d before I joined the profession. The poem is written in the third person voice to indicate the universality of the nature of my initial thoughts about nurses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The nurse is, a mother, husband, a child, excreta \u2026. The nurse learns to care, and To look out for those that need care. She seeks diverse knowledge that link the body, and the person. To be able to have a clue on the dynamic patients\u00b4 condition, she assesses, documents and makes care plans. The nurse monitors, listens, encourages, and fills her plan with patients\u00b4\/ family needs<\/p>\n\n\n\n
that require him to resolve. Certainly, this is not the only things that nurses offer. Such a truth, has been with me through my nursing career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the real world of practice, nurses not only take care of only patients, but they are also involved in administration and other roles. Below, I decided to mention this first experience of my role as a night-shift hospital superintendent, this possibly expanded my insight beyond my initial thoughts on nurses\u00b4 roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Imagine an evening in a hospital\u00b4s administrative block in 2016. A young lad is sitting at a table with books spread out all around him \u2014 documents on the number of patients, hospital wards, and emergency contacts. Besides those documents, he has a personal notebook of information he scribbled during his internships, clinical training, and pre-hospital periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I pulled out a big spiral notebook in which activities of the hospital are noted on a day and night schedule basis. At the top of each page, a heading for the shift e.g., night shift is written. The pages are blank with columns to record the number of patients on each ward, number of births (day or night), mothers in the hospital, surgeries conducted, normal deliveries etc. It is the task of the administrator on duty to fill in the columns and give a report in the early morning meeting. The sky will grow bright by the time one finishes the report. Throughout the shift, I learned to organize, communicate, time management and resolving complicated situation. Speaking of time, we noted everything by hand in the books \u2014the format for today\u2019s records remains quite close to the one we used then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, to the clinical nursing roles that I had conducted before, I got great satisfaction from my experience as the night hospital superintendent\u2014I learned that nurses also take on managerial, leadership and research roles. Perhaps therefore I became interested in pursuing a researcher career later in my career so I could better navigate other contributions that a nurse can have on healthcare. I am proud to say that as a doctoral student, I have become more research minded\u2014 this has given me the ability to juggle to generate evidence, inform practice, and contribute to developing nursing knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This blog and poem reflect on my personal nursing journey \u2013 it\u2019s also an invitation to think about the things that stimulated my interest in other activities and where I started my nursing experiences and where I am today in my professional life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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