Changing for the Better

Do you remember old paper charting?

Oh yes, I do. I remember sitting there on the night shift. You start to write your note about four o'clock in the morning, and all of a sudden you look up and you've got this long line down to page where you fell asleep in the middle of your sentence.

The doctors were God.

Oh yes. You always had to stand up as soon as they walked in the unit and give them your chair, no matter what you were doing. They were to be honored. We were like handmaidens.

Servants kind of to them. I think we now have a very collaborative relationship with our physicians. They actually ask what's going on with the patient and for input on what the patient needs. That's really a big change, and it's very positive change for nursing.

We're now more like colleagues. The other thing that's changed is the fact that now we do have open visitation, and families are now being included into care. It really does affect how well the patient does.

I'll never forget a cardiologist doing CPR. This was a lady in her eighties and the family said, "Oh no, please stop. Let mom go." We're involving the families in the care of the patients and letting them make informed decisions. Before, it was all whatever the doctor said is what everybody did.

One of the things that I've gotten into is being a holistic nurse. I do healing touch with my patients while they're in the hospital, but there's aroma therapy. I do that.

Oh wow.

There's color therapy.

That kind of thing would not have been as readily accepted in the past.

We used to have to stick them with a needle or do something that was painful and very uncomfortable for them. I really like this new way of caring for our patients.

When I first started in CCU, when you were the educator, you were really my mentor. A lot of my nursing practice has been modeled after the example you were for me. I thought, “I want to be like Linda."

Look where you are today. I think the one person I influenced, which I always have to laugh about, is my daughter. Jenny says she spent more time in the hospital before she was a year old than most people do in their lifetimes. She was only three-weeks-old and the OR surgeon called me and said, "I need you to come to work." I said, "Well, I've got the baby." He says, "Bring her," so we did. I put her in a bassinet right next to the scrub sink.

Oh wow.

He was talking to her and said, "Oh hey, sweetie." She was kind of googling. After a while, we went into the surgery and about an hour into the case he stopped and looked around. He goes, "Where's the baby?" I said, "She's in the hall." He says, "I don't hear her." I said, "Doctor, she's a perfect baby." So she started very early. She spent many a day in the nursing station while I worked. She said, "I will never be a nurse, mama. I see what you do. You work all night without having had any sleep?" Well, my daughter is today a critical care nurse at the VA hospital, and she is absolutely great at it.

The nurses today have a better work-life balance than we did. We were kind of workaholics. I'll never forget one time that I worked for 24 hours straight.

Oh yeah. We had a totally different set of standards than they do today.

I respect them for that. Some people think, oh, they don't have any work ethic. Yes they do, but it's just not the same as ours.

Well, they won't burn out if they keep their life balance with work as well as home.

Absolutely.

So things have changed and I think it's changed for the better in so many ways.