What is Nursing All About?

First of all, I would like to thank you for stopping by to view my page. By coming here, you are most likely a nurse, a nursing student, or someone who is interested in the health care field. Since I meet so many people on a daily basis who are interested in nursing, but do not really know what nursing entails, I would like to shed a little bit of light on the subject here. In future blogs, I will go into more detail, answer questions, and hit on some of the more specific topics.

So...what does a nurse do? When I first began nursing school, I wore rose-colored glasses (not literally, because I would have looked silly). I thought that the doctor would tell me what to do, and I would do it. Boy, was I wrong! Yes, nurses do carry out physicians' orders, but they do so much more. I should state right now that nursing differs depending on the facility and setting in which one works.

Nurses think critically and with a certain amount of autonomy. For instance, if a patient comes into the hospital with an infected wound, and the physician has ordered antibiotics, the nurse must first determine if a certain test, called a wound culture, has been done prior to starting the antibiotics. Without going into too much detail, a wound culture is a test that can tell us what germs are in the wound, causing the infection. Why is this important, and why is it important to know before starting the antibiotics? Antibiotics kill all bad germs, right? Wrong! It is important to know if the culture has been done before starting antibiotics, because the doctor will order an antibiotic based on what he or she thinks is causing the infection, usually based on the appearance of the wound among other factors. So, the physician will start the patient on antibiotics right away to get the germ-killing underway. However, in order to make sure the patient is taking the most appropriate antibiotics, we have to know what we're up against. So, the nurse will take a wound culture, send it to the lab, and in just a few days, we will know exactly what bugs are in the wound...and what antibiotics are most effective at killing them. If the nurse inadvertently starts the antibiotic BEFORE getting the wound culture, it could affect the results, which could mean that the patient doesn't get the most appropriate antibiotic with the most efficient and specific germ-zapping capabilities.

Nurses staff hospitals 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Nurses generally work 8-, 12-, or 16-hour shifts. These days, you are more likely to see a hospital nurse who works 12-hour shifts. Nurses in outpatient clinics may only work 8- or 10-hour shifts, and may only do so during the weekdays. However, nursing care is provided in the hospital around the clock. Nurses become the eyes, ears, and hands of the physicians. Registered nurses (RNs) perform shift assessments. This means that at the beginning of each shift, an RN will do assessments on all inpatients. If you have been a patient in a hospital, you may have noticed that the RN assessed for things that you thought were irrelevant to the reason you were in the hospital. However, this is for good reason. Our bodies can tell us things in such strange ways that the entire body must be assessed, from head-to-toe. Did you know that if your liver is failing, the white part of your eyes becomes yellow? Did you know that certain medications can lead to severe neurological damage, and can be detected early by looking into the eyes, or by having you hold out your hands? Every little thing that the nurse does during the assessment has a purpose.

Nurses document...and then document some more. Nurses generally live by the credo, "If you didn't document it, you didn't do it!" While that may seem a little strange (kind of like the philosophical question, "If a tree falls in the woods, and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?"), there is truth to it. Yes, you may have started an IV, drawn blood, assisted a patient to walk in the hallway, and changed a dressing, but if you did not chart that it was done, you can't prove in a court of law that it was done. So, nurses document everything they do. They may even document some of the things their patients say, if it lends something to the documentation. For example, the nurse may chart, "Complains of abdominal pain." This is an accurate statement. However, take a look at the following piece of documentation. "Complains of abdominal pain. States, 'It's very sharp and it hurts worse than anything I've ever experienced before.' Facial grimacing present when patient changes positions in bed." The person who is reading this can tell much more about the patient than if he or she read the first piece of documentation. Nurses must learn to write succinctly, which means - give a lot of information and meaning with as few words as possible. So, nurses cut out extraneous words, but then choose the words that will have the most impact, and the most accurate meaning.

I could go on for days, but I have included some of the most basic nursing duties here. Keep looking back for more topics, musings, and must-knows!