the art of nursing

“the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things but their inward significance.”  -aristotle

i attended a nursing conference some months ago.  i sat down at the opening session next to four nurses...all were from china.  they had travelled 17 hours by air to come there.  i marveled at their willingness to journey so far to pursue excellence and knowledge in our profession.  later at lunch i was joined two jordanian nurses.  they had travelled 22 hours. in all over 7500 nurses from around the globe converged here.  each to learn and to network and to glean from one another.  in simple terms we were here to understand our practice of excellence in nursing.  what were our stories and the common threads in them i wondered?

i began to think about my profession and what brought us all here to this place.  i wondered at how culture might influence and change it.  two speakers stood at the podium...one a nurse and one a photojournalist.  the nurse spoke about the history of nursing but it struck me how eurocentric her presentation was. the photojournalist fortunately had chronicled the experiences of nurses from a much broader view. there were the pictures and some stories but i craved to know more.  why was our history not chronicled more thoroughly?  surely the stories and struggles were different from region to region...different from mine.  and just as surely they were the same.

  

i love history.  i thought about my own.  i am the daughter, the niece, the sister and the great granddaughter of a nurse.  mine is a personal and familial history.  but i was also quite curious about not just the history of the profession but instead the history of each of us.  i spoke at length with a man from british new guinea who emigrated here more than a decade ago.  he worked his way through nursing school as a security guard and through scholarship and currently works in oncology at mt. sinai hospital.  he talked about being a new nurse and of that familiar practice of eating our young...    

yes we do that.  we test and chastise our new nurses.  it is truly grueling and when one moves from one specialty to the next you are subjected all over again.  this nurse from new guinea so desired to be exceptional in his practice that he came in on his days off to work with a more experienced nurse until he gained proficiency in the skills he desired.  he told me that he asked questions of more than one person on the same subject.  he wanted to ensure that he understood proper and common practice.  this earned him a “lack of confidence” label and three additional months of probation he said.

later in the first day of the conference i passed a room that drew my attention.  in the room i found three long tables covered in paper. set atop were a variety of pens, pastels, markers and pencils.  as i entered i was offered these instructions, ”this collaborative art piece is an opportunity to visually reflect on your own history as a nurse.  three scrolls are spread across the tables signifying the past the present and the future. on these scrolls either write and or draw your story.”  

i began to read what was written on these scrolls.  various methods and bits formed and took shape.  as i moved through them reading i realized what precious gems these snippets were. without realizing it i had found what i had come here to learn.  what was written and drawn here were the very finely interwoven tendrils of my profession.  some were new and tender some firmly attached and unbending still others had begun to wither. these bits were the soul of us.  our reasons...very clear and specific ones for our becoming and being nurses.  

i began to photograph some of these snippets. to the reader they may mean little but i will admit that as i read my eyes began to fill and spill over with emotion.  i was so moved that i had to leave.  i came back later that day and then again the next before i could finish reading them.  some of them were written in logograms i could not read...in chinese or korean or japanese i could not tell which.  everyone of us it seems had a story to tell:   

“my patient looked up from a sea of clinicians in the pre-op and said, “where is my nurse?”  

“teddy taught me there is no suffering that god cannot heal...and now nurses heal suffering.”  

“i have been thinking of a young mother dying of cancer who only wished to see her young children graduate. so she kept fighting.“  

“you must be the change you wish to see.”     

“i help volunteer during and after an act of nature.”

“believe that the simplest of acts mean the most.”

“my wish: to be valued every day for the compassion we give every day.  our profession is who we are.  we don’t leave nursing when we walk out the door.”

“nursing makes a difference.  sometimes a nurse can keep a patient alive by holding his hand talking him back to life.””

drawing of a nurse asking a child “are you sick?”  child, “no i am seven.”  comment below, ”made me laugh.”

“my grandmother was a nurse in wwI and wwII.  she was so courageous and inspired me in her care for all humans.  even prisoners who were considered the enemy.  she connected with their humanness and nursed them like all her patients.”

“my patient i will never forget. a 14yo girl with pregnancy associated cardiomyopathy. she touched all of us. now i give high risk critical care OB seminars. she lives on in my teachings.”

“nursing is a part of my life 24/7.  nursing is a part of who i am as a person.”

“nicholas, i stayed with you as you left this world.  i carried your body to the morgue.  you were a brave little boy that i will never forget.  i named one of my boys after you over 20 years after i knew you.  you still inspire me to this day. I look forward to seeing you again someday. judy”

“i wish there was an easy way to explain to my friends and family what a nurse does.  while the premise is to take care of patients.  todays world takes that to a complex and complicated level.”

much later i went back to write my own...

one of the last lectures i attended was the history of american nurses who became POWs during wwII. while interned they maintained a sense of order and sanity by doing what was innate in them...they nursed.  it was not their heroism or their suffering but their steadfast determination in caring for others that stood out.  i am a professional nurse.  i think in modern nursing we forget that it does not matter where we practice; be it in a hospital or in a tent or in a slum or in a hut. we nurse because we have the power to impact others lives.  we do indeed make a difference.  we touch, we listen, we teach, we heal.  “i made a difference.” one nurse wrote. i reflect on that and hope that i have done the same.