Liz's Blog
January 7, 2010
Happy New Year! One of my favorite things about being a Spring start Linfield student is having January off. A couple of my friends went to New Zealand on the January abroad trip and are having a great time, but I decided to stay here since I have a lot of NSNA stuff to be working on. Plus, it’s nice to reconnect with my husband and, on occasion, sleep until 11:00. Yes, that’s right, 11:00. It has definitely been a relaxing start to the year. My big project has been working on a Health Care Reform Position Statement for NSNA, something I took on last fall at our Mid-Year Conference. I have to admit I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I took it on, but it has been a great learning experience, that’s for sure. It helps to know that it will pass through many more editors before being published. Besides, no matter how challenging the project may be, this is what I love about NSNA. I mean, here I am getting to help write the position statement on something as important as health care reform for an organization with over 50,000 members. Pretty crazy. But thanks to Linfield’s nurturing atmosphere and NSNA’s dedication to making sure nursing students have a voice on the national level, here I am!
This month is also January orientation for the students who will be starting in Spring. I like to help out with the orientation team because it’s a great way to stay connected to new students coming in. Sometimes it’s easy to become isolated as a cohort so it’s nice to try to reach outside those boundaries. I remember orientation was such an exciting time. It felt like I had been doing pre-reqs forever so to have actual nursing school in sight was awesome. That said, it’s always a little overwhelming with all the new information, vaccination requirements and opportunities to get involved. I think we all had a glazed look on our faces at the end of the day and every group I’ve helped orient since is the same.
In fact it’s hard to believe that just two years ago I was getting oriented to my new life as a nursing student and now I’m looking ahead to my very last term here. I’m sure this won’t be the last time I say it but it will certainly be a bittersweet ending to my time here. While I think every nursing student will say that they are looking forward to getting a job and earning some real income, there are also those of us who will really miss school. We have a great community here and I’ve made some lifelong friends. It will be hard to leave this for the unknown. I can only hope I will find a work environment that has been as welcoming as Linfield, Portland Campus.
December 5, 2009
The term is winding down now, which mean that things are picking up for us nursing students. Two papers, a take-home test and a professional portfolio all due in the next two weeks! Time to take a deep breath and dive in head first! The class I’m finishing up is NUR 313: Adapting to Health Challenges. Students often call the course “chronic illness” because it’s the course that covers concepts related to chronic conditions, living with chronic illness, and caring for dying patients. I think nursing students generally consider this less “glamorous” nursing, as opposed to ICU or acute care settings. In fact, it is often the most important kind of care because it has the power to prevent patients from ever needing intensive care in the first place. Our society places a higher value on technology and tertiary care and this is reflected in the way our current health care system is set up: we spend more on intensive and acute care than preventative care, even though preventative care has been proven to be the most cost effective form of care. Nursing students’ views of their own profession often parallels this arrangement. Professional nurses who have been immersed in the work force often have a clearer picture of exactly how important preventative care is. This class gives many of us our first glimpses of this picture.
My clinical site was great. It was actually a combination of two sites because I got to spend one day at a care home called Elliot House and another day doing home visits with an organization called the Friendly House. At Elliot House I helped care for mentally and physically-handicapped people, all of whom needed total care. The setting is amazing, truly like a real home, and the care is wonderful. The residents are happy and, because the organization is state-funded and well staffed, they are in great health, and have none of the skin breakdown, depression, or malnutrition issues that are often associated with long-term care facilities. These patients rarely need hospital services despite having completely debilitating diseases, and therefore cost the health care system much less. Also, because the system is set up in a way that allows care providers to provide the quality care they feel good about their work and the place has very little turn-over (also a money saver).
The Friendly House is also a perfect example of primary care in action. While I found it sad that a nonprofit organization is struggling to fill in the gaps of our healthcare system, the work they are doing is great. I spent the majority of the time visiting elderly people in their homes and helping them manage their medications. Some elderly people can be taking up to twenty medications. Some of them need to be taking at specific times, on an empty stomach, with food or for a certain number of doses and that can be a lot to remember. My colleague and I helped them find better ways of managing their meds to reduce their illness symptoms and side effects. It was a different environment working in people’s homes but I really liked it because as nurses we had a lot more autonomy.
So all in all it’s been a great term. I’ve learned a lot about ideas that I can use right away as the discussion about health care reform flares up. And heck, after these next few papers, projects, and exams, I will be only one semester away from being a real nurse. Like I said, time to dive in!
October 12, 2009
Greetings from above! I’m on a plane right now returning from the Idaho State Student Nurses’ Association, a trip I took for part of my position on the NSNA Board of Directors. It’s my first “Field Visit” and did not start out at all like I planned. In fact, it almost didn’t start at all.
I was scheduled to leave on Friday afternoon. After class and two other quick meetings, I made it to the airport in what I thought was good time. Now, there are many jokes around my house about me being a little spacey, disorganized and, well, easily distracted. But I never thought that these things could combine perfectly on one day and lead me to miss a flight. I mean, I’m a pretty seasoned traveler! But lo and behold, when the plane left I wasn’t on it. I was devastated! I was supposed to be representing a professional organization and this was definitely NOT a professional thing to do.
Trying, though unsuccessfully, to keep my cool, I called the NSNA president who calmly laid out my options, reassured me that I would still make it to the convention, and began taking steps to solve the problem. Before I knew it I was running through the airport towards another flight destined for eastern Washington, where a car was reserved in my name to drive the rest of the way to Idaho. Luckily, I made it, with time to spare.
As I reflect on the situation now, I hope I can take away some lessons: things aren’t always as horrible as they seem at first and when they do seem bad it’s best to take a step back and assess the situation instead of freaking out and automatically giving into devastation. I think these are two areas a lot of nursing students could improve in, myself included. We are quick to assume the worst. “I totally failed that tests,” we say. Or, “I’ll never learn how to do IVs,” “I hate my clinical site,” “this reading list is impossible.” These reactions only increase our stress levels and that is definitely something we DON’T need. Instead, we need to analyze the situation and determine what our options are.
October 1, 2009
The first week of October! Not only does this mean that Halloween is getting close, for Linfield nursing students, it means you made it through your first month of fall term. That is something to celebrate. While new students have settled into their routine and are already looking like veterans, seniors are starting to talk about senior practicums, job prospects, and other future plans. For the new students graduation may seem impossibly far away but we are here to reassure them that it isn’t and that time actually tends to fly by.
My two favorite things about Linfield School of Nursing are its size and that it’s pretty much only nursing students here. These two things lead to tons of opportunity for mentorship, growth, personal attention from faculty and staff and of course leadership, which I have mentioned before. Nursing students rule the school! Of course, we are not one homogenous group. We are all extremely diverse and yet, because certain types of people are drawn to nursing, we are able to relate on a fundamental level. Plus, there is always a ready-made conversation starter for a new face on campus with the question: “what term are you in?”
When I was deciding where I wanted to go for nursing school back in 2008, it was this intangible feeling of unity and respect that drew me to Linfield. When I called another school that had accepted me to ask a few simple questions, they brushed off my concerns and said they wouldn’t be able to provide me with answers until August (two months after I was supposed to send in a nice-sized check confirming my enrollment). Their reasoning? The person on the phone explained it was because I was “just a nursing undergrad,” and went on to say that perhaps if I was a graduate student she might be able to help me. Miffed, to say the least, I hung up the phone and called the next school on my list (Linfield) and right away got the head of the department I had the question about and had my answer in less than 5 minutes. I made my decision that day and have never regretted it!
September 11, 2009
And we're off! School started last week with the usual attempts to get organized before classes start. I used to be the girl who had all my binders ready (tabs all properly designated, of course) a week before class started. Now I'm lucky if they're in order by the second week!
I’m really excited about my nursing classes this term, OB/ Mother Baby and Chronic Health. I started my OB/Mother Baby clinical rotation last week. It's not my particular area of interest since I plan on working in geriatrics after graduation, but if last week was a sample of what's to come I have a feeling I'm really going to enjoy this clinical. We got to do three assessments, two on mothers in postpartum care and one on a newborn (only four hours old!). Of course, it's impossible to not say the word "cute" about a hundred times a day, but I'm hoping I can get over that soon. One minute it makes me want a baby and the next it makes me terrified of having a kid because of all the things that can go wrong.
I guess that is one thing we don't think about before starting nursing school: as we learn about all these disease processes we often start to think about our own health in a different way. We start to realize how fragile health is. In each patient we see a little bit of ourselves, and wonder what it would be like in their shoes.
After awhile this process can become exhausting as we continuously reach out to share our patients' experiences. But it is nevertheless a fundamental part of caring that comes naturally to many of us who have chosen this profession. I suppose the trick is creating a healthy balance of sharing, empathizing, and maintaining boundaries to protect oneself from becoming emotionally drained. In fact, working towards finding that balance will be one of my goals this term. I'm sure these two classes will offer plenty opportunities for practice, so I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
Summer 2009
School may be out for summer, but that doesn’t always mean things slow down for a nursing student. My summer started out with a trip to New York for my first week-long NSNA Board of Directors meeting--what a week it was! I had been to New York before but this time felt like the first time all over again.
It was a whirlwind experience. I took two of my finals the day before I left, packed that night, and then caught an early morning flight to the Big Apple. I had no idea how inspiring it would be to work with some of the greatest and most motivated nursing student leaders from around the country. I couldn’t predict the pride that I would feel as I learned the history of the National Student Nurses Association and I had no idea how much work we would get done in such a little amount of time.
The biggest lesson I took away from the week I spent at the board meeting was to remember to keep things in perspective. Sometimes in the midst of studying for a test or writing a paper the task can seem overwhelming, all-consuming--especially for the notoriously type-A nursing students. During times of stress it’s hard to remember the big picture and that there are in fact, much more important things out there.
For example taking a break to cuddle your kids, call a friend, kiss your husband, or pet your cat is going to mean more in the end than that last half hour studying (you’re usually so burned by that time anyways, it doesn’t really help!). The same goes for professional organization involvement. Sometimes, I’ll have to miss school for my NSNA position or spend a little less time on a project or paper, but in the end my involvement in NSNA is going to mean much more to me, my peers, and the profession. So, remember to have fun and do things that inspire you. Simple, right? Well, we’ll see if I can keep reminding myself of that once school starts!
As for this summer, even though it has been packed with projects and plans for the coming year, I’ve definitely been keeping things in perspective. I may still be answering N-CLEX questions but I’m doing it by the pool. I’m still spending a lot of time in meetings but I’m also finding time to enjoy a quick happy hour with friends afterwards. As for my cat and my husband, well, I think they’re the only people happier than me that I found this new perspective.
Spring 2009
I still can’t believe how fast time went by since I started nursing school! At orientation one year ago, one of the professors told us that nursing school was unlike anything we’ve ever been through. How right she was! I have learned so much during my time here at Linfield--both about our future profession and about myself.
When I first returned to college in 2005 to pursue my life-long dream of becoming a nurse, I was extremely nervous about my abilities. Eventually, once I took more and more classes, my confidence returned. But when I started nursing school after finishing my prerequisites, those same nervous feelings returned in full force. A year later, the anxiety is gone and all that remains is bubbling excitement of entering the best profession I can imagine!
Though I’ve had many amazing experiences, this first year of nursing school climaxed at the National Student Nurses’ Association (NSNA) Annual convention in Nashville, Tennessee. The Linfield Student Nurses’ Association, our local chapter of NSNA, raised enough funds to send four students to the convention, the first time Linfield had sent students in years. I was lucky enough to get one of their scholarships to attend and it truly changed my life. The National Student Nurses’ Association promotes professional development in nursing students by providing educational resources, leadership opportunities, and career guidance. At the convention, NSNA fulfilled all of their promises, bringing together over 3,000 nursing students from across the country! Those few days in Nashville were especially exciting for me because I had decided to run for national office from the floor of the House of Delegates.
In truth, I don’t think I knew what I was getting myself into when I made the decision to run, but I certainly don’t regret it now. My campaign was a crash course in politics, professional development, and public speaking. My awesome campaign manager and I talked to around 25 different state caucuses about everything from NSNA’s strategic plan, to getting small states like Oregon more involved at a national level, to the many challenges that nurses and nursing students face. Along with other candidates, I talked to hundreds of students at “Meet the Candidates” events and each of us gave campaign speeches in front of around 500 delegates. At long last, I sat in the House of Delegates clenching the hands of my fellow Oregon delegates as they read the election results.
Now I’m back in Portland and am not only looking forward to my senior year but a year of serving as a Director on the NSNA board of directors. It’s going to be a great year at Linfield!