T&A

Last night I attended the local district meeting of the Texas Nurses Association. (TNA, *snicker*). It was held at Really Awesome Children's Hospital where I would really like to work--an added bonus. I'm required to attend one professional organization meeting as partial fulfillment of the requirements of my Professional Nursing Trends class.

Surprisingly enough, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The speakers for the evening included a Really Awesome Children's Hospital employee and the mother of ex-26-weeker triplets. Their combined story was absolutely spellbinding. The over-arching theme was patient-family centered care. Not as a trendy catch-phrase, but in true practice. Things like parents and patients being included in rounds. Things like setting plan-of-care goals together with the patient and parents. Trusting parents to be the expert on their children. And absolutely non-judgmental care. Maybe these are all things you or your hospital does all or in part, but as a unified, intentional concept, I think it could truly change the face of healthcare.

Then the parent got up and spoke about her sons and made it all personal. And completely relevant. One of her sons has just battled so hard over the last 7 years. He's fought through being 14 weeks early, RSV, drug resistant H1N1, a lung transplant, air embolism and the subsequent loss of one of the transplanted lungs, paralysis, legal blindness, and many other hardships. This year he started kindergarten in a public school, and not in a special ed class either. It's an amazing story, and it was told so eloquently and passionately.

After it was over, I spoke with the mom and thanked her. I truly believe we don't get enough of the human element in nursing school, I think it gets lost. I think the profession is only lucky that the vast majority of those that aspire to become nurses harbor a well-developed sense of altruism. As a result, most of us quickly regain that human factor, if we've lost it at all. Probably it's the poop that weeds out most of the posers.

After talking with the speakers I managed to corner the chief nursing recruiter and chat her up. I've come to sense that there's a palpable difference in the atmosphere when you can tell that the people who work for an organization believe they work somewhere special. I so want to work someplace like that.

Do you hear me, Really Awesome Children's Hospital!?!