Nurses and their relationship with patients
As writers and editors for healthcare, there is a great deal of time spent writing about the realities of being a nurse today. But sometimes, our personal and professional lives cross paths and we get to experience the realities of nursing today from a firsthand perspective.
Recently, my personal and professional life intersected when I spent the day in and out of the hospital, interacting with nurses and physicians on different levels than I had expected.
I began the day visiting my primary care physician (PCP), who asked the basic questions to try and diagnose what was wrong with me. After determining I needed a CT scan, I was sent to the hospital and that was the last I saw or heard from my PCP. From there it was only nurses who interacted with me, conducting the tests, reading me my results, keeping me calm, and telling me what to do to help with the pain until the physician called me the next morning.
I was struck by the fact it was nurses who managed my care and provided both patient education and psycho-social support. In today’s busy and sometimes overstretched healthcare systems, it seems to be nurses who are at the center of it all, holding everything in place and always keeping the patient’s needs their top priority.
Which led me to ponder, how do nurses balance the various aspects of their role with taking time to build relationships with patients? What advice can experienced nurses give the new graduate nurses just entering the workforce about how to balance their patient care responsibilities and still find time to care?
About the Author: Sarah is an Editorial Assistant in the patient safety group at HCPro, Inc. She contributes to two monthly newsletters; Briefings on the Joint Commission and Briefings on Patient Safety, and manages four e-zines; Accreditation Connection, AHAP Staff Challenge, Nurse Manager Weekly, and Healthcare Training Weekly. She also helps research new products for the patient safety and nursing market. She graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2008 where she earned her bachelor's degree in English.
