with the computer? Watch the next code blue and check out how fast
we think and run. Do we look lazy to them? Do we look lightweight?
Do we look scared? Not on your life. We're there when the moment
strikes, whether we're tired or hungry, on good days and bad, regard-
less of whether we get along with the surgeon. Check out a nurse's
pockets if you want to see how prepared we are for any eventuality. (I
actually wear 2 scrub jackets: not on account of chilly OR temps, but
because it provides me with more pockets for my stuff.)
We know our patients so well, inside and out, and keep you safe.
Even the slightest change in temperature, color or mood alerts us that
something isn't quite right. Nurses have the honor and the privilege to
be present when you first open your eyes on the world, and we'll be
there to close them when it's your time to leave it.
Our destinies
I chose nursing, or it chose me, and it gets my hackles up when
someone outside the profession thinks they know what makes up a
nurse. Let me put it this way: Could we do what that questionably
talented HR rep who was checking references does? As somebody
famous once said, I'd be conceited if I said I could, but I'd be lying
if I said I couldn't. Could she do what 3.1 million of us nurses do
every day? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, not a chance.
But then, that's not her purpose.
Are we truly born to the purpose of nursing and the possibility of
changing lives? I don't know. But I figure that, in all these years that
I've been "just a nurse," my ability to make a positive difference in
more than a few of the lives that fate put before me means that I've
succeeded in what I show up at work to do.
OSM
Ms. Watkins can be reached at pwatkins12@comcast.net.
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