One of the awesome classes they've saved for Senior II is Community Health. It's not that I don't think community health isn't terribly important, because frankly I really do. My sarcasm is rooted in two main ideas.
First, there is no way on God's green earth I'll ever do community nursing. It's just NOT for me. Trying to educate stupid people who don't even know they're stupid, and don't want to be educated anyway? My idea of personal hell.
Second, my all-knowing college of nursing's idea of community health clinical is to ship us off to the nurse's office at every elementary school in a 50 mile radius. Don't get me wrong, school nursing has a pretty sweet schedule--I mean, summers off? Sweet. But it's about the perfect antithesis to the kind of nursing I want to do, and the thought of sitting on my ass for the required 64 hours makes my legs go numb in anticipation. So, when an alternative was offered, I jumped at the chance. And that is how I came to be assigned to an investigative unit of Child Protective Services.
My very first day I went on 5 visits, from a hospital, to schools, to a home visit in a residential hotel. The cases ranged from a mom who admitted to using marijuana before she realized she was pregnant, to a kid that was so dirty I had to hold my breath that claimed to have been beaten with a dog leash.
It's been interesting watching the dynamics in all these situations, and so far I haven't personally seen anything just gut-wrenchingly sad.
So much better than sitting in a nurse's office.
"Trying to educate stupid people who don't even know they're stupid, and don't want to be educated anyway? My idea of personal hell."
ReplyDeleteAmen brother!
I hated that class whenI was in nursing school. It was an easy one to skate through Sr yr, but it sucked for sure.
I'm diggin your perspective as well. However, I must say that those mini-descriptions seem a little gut-wrenching. Maybe not totally...and you've been working a clinical nursing environment, and you have kids. So I'd imagine you have some tolerance I may not. Sounds like you may have found that solution to the dilemma you've been describing about whether to take a chance on something or stay where you know you'll be retained but won't move forward like you seem to want to. Git 'em, and make the difference you're meant to.
ReplyDeleteAw, community health nursing is awesome! Seriously. Because that's where you actually get to help people who have no clue and were discharged from the hospital with a paper that said "Go to this specialist, get this medication, do this other thing..." You hospital people don't actually think that people are able to follow the treatment plan once they walk out the door, do you? ;)
ReplyDeleteAnd regarding your previous post about people being restrained without any other interventions--that is horrifying. Does your hospital have an incident-reporting system? Many hospitals have some kind of semi-anonymous way to report concerns about patient care. I would encourage you to utilize it.
SP: Don't get me wrong, definitely sad, but not something I can't maintain my professionalism over. I can think of a case or two I've heard about in the news that I might lose self control if I'd been around the perpetrator.
ReplyDeleteLN: I was wondering if you would comment. I actually think community nursing is an amazing field. I just don't have the patience for it. And that's my own failing, not a downfall of the discipline. Thank you for all you do!
In my field of nursing it is working with the public and doing a LOT of triage and teaching. When the light bulb goes on it is very gratifying for sure. I have to say though, I really miss the miles of running around that I used to do in the hospital, but due to my injuries in an MVA 5 yrs ago, it isn't possible. So I am thankful for my options....and I do have to agree with LN....some people aren't given enough instruction..... :)
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