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We all have people in our lives who we look up to not only personally but also in a professional capacity. The nurse who I interviewed on February 24^th, 2021 is an amazing woman who has dedicated 30 years of her life to be a nurse as well as 15 years teaching and inspiring certified nursing assistants and future health professionals. This one person has dedicated their life to helping others and given it all she has on every day. It was apparent just from listening to her talk that she is passionate about what she does and views obstacles as learning curves to overcome. 

Although I have known this nurse for 6 years, I was able to learn so much more about her journey through her career during this interview. After high school, she attended a diplomacy nursing school and became a registered nurse after 2 years. From there she went on to work at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth Mass on various different floors. She mostly worked in the cardiac ICU where she worked as a charge nurse. Based on the way the health care field started to change, most diploma nurses or LPN’s were required to go to school to get their BSN or continue to work but in a lesser capacity. After dedicating so much time to nursing and going from a leadership role back down to a lower position was a hard transition to make. While going back to school she began teaching at the high school as the assistant teacher for the Allied Health technical program. This program was a culmination of practical and educational content that leads to the certification of the student as CNAs by the end of their junior year. These role changes taught her a lot about what it meant to be both a formal and informal leader. 

As the charge nurse, she was in a formal leadership role where everyone looked up to her and she was in charge of the day-to-day the floor. Once her role changed and she was now practicing in a different capacity she took on an informal leadership role of leading by example. She explained what the transition period was like for LPN’s as they were forced to restructure the care they were allowed to perform and how many of the LPN’s were resentful of the younger BSRN’s who has so much less experience and in some cases no experience yet they were considered to be their superiors. After going through this change at work she also had to take on a new form of leadership in the classroom as a teacher that she had never taken on before. I asked her, “based on all the leadership positions you have had thrown out your career, what has been the hardest aspect of being a leader?” She responded, “ I never saw myself as being a leader until I became a teacher. When working as a nurse no matter your title everyone works on the same level and works together with mutual respect. But as a teacher, you have all these young people looking up to you and expecting so much out of what you are to teach them.”  She went on to talk about the fact that being an educator for potential young health professionals is a stressful job and a lot of responsibility. “As you know, you students have so much trust in  Ms. G and me, and you guys trust and expect us to provide you with the skills needed to be CNAs. This is a lot of responsibility for us and luckily our students have created a great reputation for this program within our community and the facilities they work in.” I was surprised by the wording she used when answering this question and the fact that she said the students created a great reputation. Even though she provides the student with the education and skills needed to succeed in their careers, she personally does not take the credit for that. 

I learned during this interview that a nurse leader does not only pertain to positions in a hospital but also encompasses leading through education and example. This leader I interviewed does not view themselves as a leader. Once I told them that’s how I saw them and looked up to them both professionally and personally they responded by saying, “I was just doing my job, but thank you that means a lot.” This she views her job as a nurse educator as well as a nurse as a position to provide help to those in need whether it be a patient or up-and-coming health professional. A leader is not just someone who barks orders at others and has a particular title. A leader is someone who inspires others to do better and makes strides to achieve a common goal. I also learned that a good leader doesn’t take credit for other successes but rather acknowledges their influence in the matter but is able to see that it was not all their doing. A leader knows their own strengths and weaknesses as well as the strength and weaknesses of the team and is able to overcome these obstacles and work as a team to achieve the goals set. This interview experience was very informative to me in getting to know someone on a different level. I have only ever viewed them as a leader and someone I was able to look up to. Years later now that I am no longer their student and about to become a nurse myself, our conversation was more at a level of peers talking to each other and I was able to develop a new level of respect for them as a person and leader. I will apply what I learned from her in all aspects of both my student career as well as a professional one. A good leader leads by example and is able to ask for help and admit when they are wrong. 

Choosing my subject was rather hard. There have been so many nurses threw out my life that I have viewed as leaders and looked up not only as nurses but also people. After some consideration, I finally decided that I was going to interview my high school vocational tech teacher. I was in a program called Allied Health that provided us with the skills needed to become Certified Nursing Assistance. She has been a nurse for over 15 years and works as a charge nurse in a local nursing home while also teaching up and coming nurses. My teacher has been working at the high school for the past 10 year and has inspired and helped create hundreds of nurses and other medical professions by inspiring us at such a young age. Over the four years I was in her program, I was able to see her many different qualities that make her such a great leader. First off, she is a compassionate and hardworking individual who inspires those around her to put forth the same effort. She is also kind and genuinely cares about the success of not only her students but also all her patients. To this day she will still check in with me and I know she does this with students that graduated years before me. That being said she also expects her students and coworkers to perform at their best at all times and has no issue telling you when you are not doing your best. One thing I distinctly remember is our first day of clinical in the nursing home. At the time sophomore year in high school I was still unsure if nursing was really what I wanted to do and if it would be something I was good at. She must have sensed this in my and while the rest of my classmates where preforming nail care and helping with feeds, I was paired up one-on-one with a former student of hers who was working at the facility. That day working through this assignment is when I fell in love with nursing and knew I was on the right path. She was able to provide me with that experience and has done this with pretty much all of her student. Of my graduating class from the program, 16 of us entered into nursing programs and the other 6 either went into other medical profession or did not go to college and countified to work as CNAs. The aspect of her leadership that is most inspiring is her drive and passion for what she is doing. She truly loves nursing and pays it forward to the profession by inspiring young nurses. Getting to work with her not only in the classroom but also in the clinical setting taught me the aspects that make someone a great nurse as well as leader. Going into this interview, I am excited to learn more about my teachers roles as a leader and how she views them. I’d also like to learn how she uses her leadership skills in the classroom versus the workplace and if they are similar and overlapping in approach’s. I am mostly looking forward to the opportunity to learn more about the leadership qualities in the person who inspired me to enter this profession 

Empathy and compassion are important traits to have not only in nursing, but also in a person’s everyday life. Empathy, by definition is “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner (empathy, n.d)”, while compassion is “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it (compassion, n.d)”. My person definition of these words are similar to the dictionary definition. To me empathy is being able to truly feel the pain, excitement, or any emotion of another person without making it be about yourself. Compassion is the desire to lessen ones pain and suffering through actions, of kindness and caring. From these definitions, it is easy to see how empathy and compassion go hand and hand, and often can overlap in life and more importantly, in the clinical setting. Over the past six weeks, I have been able to experience empathy and compassion on the floors of New England Rehibition Hospital in Portland and have witnessed the effects it has on a patient. Along with empathy and compassion, I experienced many instances of caring that reminded me of aspects that Jean Watson touched on in her “Core Concepts of Human Caring”. Through these experiences in clinical, I was able to achieve a practical understanding of the human aspect of nursing that cannot be taught or seen in textbooks. 

Jean Watson is an American nurse theorist who is well known for her theory of human caring. Watson developed this theory from her own view of nursing and in an effort to bring meaning to the emerging field of nursing (Wagner, 2010, Watson, n.d). In Watsons theory, she expresses ten caritive factors/processes that are present in nursing. A commonality that all these factors share is that they revolve around the aspects of compassion and empathy. Whether you are feeling the patients emotions or have sympathy for them, Watson incorporates this feeling into her works and implements them into the field of nursing. For this paper I chose to focus in on three factors in particular. The caritive factors I will be talking about are, being authentically present when caring for a patient, developing a helping-trusting and authentic relationship, and lastly being present and supportive of expressed feelings. I chose to focus in on these three factors, not because they are more important than the other seven but rather the fact that they evoked the strongest emotional memories. I also feel that when I think about these factors in particular, they remind me of empathy and compassion and the roles they play in achieving the outcomes of these factors. Watson’s theories captured aspects of the nursing field that at the beginning of the semester I could not quite conceptualize. Now as I read through Watson’s works, I am able to put her factors and concepts into practical nursing applications. 

On my first day of clinical I was assigned to a patient who was two weeks post ischemic stroke. This patient was nearing their time of discharge and adamantly just wanted to go home. The only evidence of a stroke that remained was slight right side weakness in their right arm. Being the scared, nervous student I was walking into that room, I could tell that they noticed my hesitancy and were made uneasy. In that moment I knew I had to be honest with the patient and let them know that this was my first day and that I did in fact know what I was doing but was just nervous since it was a new experience. This honesty with the patient seemed to calm them enough to allow me to begin getting them ready for the day. I almost feel like in that moment the patient was being the empathetic and compassionate one in our relationship. From that moment forward I felt that we settled into a good student nurse, patient relationship that was a helping-trusting and authentic relationship. We spent a significant amount of time together getting to know more about each other and talk about our lives. They told me about recently losing their spouse and having their children live out of state. I could sense how lonely and isolated my patient was and knew that all they really needed from me on that day was to be there and present for them. We sat for a while just being together and I could tell that they appreciated having someone be there and support them. That day we built a mutual trust that allowed us to help each other grow. They gave me the confidence I needed in the clinical setting to be empathetic and compassionate with my patients. For them I was able to be there at a time of loneliness and was able to just listen to them as they expressed their feelings without expressing judgment or rushing them. My patient even thanked me when it was time for me to go. They said how much they appreciated the time I took to just be with them and be present in the moment.  

After that first clinical experience I was much more confident in my role as a student nurse. I felt like I was actually making a difference to the patients by taking the time to get to know them and I started noticing ways in which others could be more compassionate towards some patients. During my time at clinical I got to assist with two straight catherization’s, and the experiences could not have been more different. On my third week of clinical a nurse offered to let me watch how a straight catheterization was done. This was an exciting experience for me, but I knew that for the patient this was not going to be a pleasant experience. Knowing this, I went into the room with the nurse and introduced myself and asked how they were doing to try and ease their nerves. The nurse I was with did not do any of this. They walked in and just began setting up their sterile field without acknowledging the patient. I was shocked by the nurse’s actions and could tell that because the nurse did not talk to them or inform the patient of what was going to happen, the patient became increasingly uneasy. The patient became extremely agitated as the time for the procedure neared. I felt like I had to step up and try and support and be there for the patient. I started talking to them and asking questions to distract them from what was going on. I showed the patient that I was authentically there and present in the moment. After a little more talking and calming them down the nurse was ready to begin. Again, they did not address the patient and began explaining what they were going to do to me rather than the patient. Although I appreciated the lesson on catheterization, the bigger lesson I learned from this experience was how not to act. I learned from this nurse what it looked like to not be empathetic and compassionate when performing a rather invasive and uncomfortable procedure. The way I was able to perform Watson’s caritive factor of being authentically present with a patient, the nurse could have done while preparing their field. By ignoring the patient and never addressing them, the patient became even more agitated and uncomfortable. 

The second catheterization I did while at clinical was drastically better than the previous one. For this situation it was me and a fellow classmate preforming the catheterization with the supervision of our clinical instructor. Before we entered the room, I recounted to my classmate the experience I had the first time and together we agreed that we would make the client feel as supported as we could. In this experience I would say we utilized all three of Watson’s factors that I touched on at the beginning of the paper. We walked in introduced ourselves explained what we were going to do and asked if they had any questions or concerns. The patient was unsettled by the fact that we were students and that my classmate had never performed a catheterization before. We did our best to be supportive of the patients feelings and not undermine their fears and anxiety. Through being present and authentic with the patient, we were able to calm them done and reassured them that we were competent and that our clinical instructor would be in to supervise the procedure. Before we started the procedure, the floor nurse came in and after addressing the patient, they informed us that we needed a coudé tip catheter. My classmate and clinical instructor left to get the new catheter and I was left with the patient. Again, the patient became anxious about the procedure and sought reassurance. In the time I was alone with the patient we built a trusting relationship where they asked me if I was going to be there the whole time. They even held onto my hand during the procedure for comfort. After we finished and got them all cleaned up, the patient thanked us and complemented us on our professionalism. This second experience really solidified the importance of being empathetic and compassionate when preforming nursing duties. 

Compassion, empathy, and their impact in Watson’s 10 caritive factors, are elements of being a nurse that should be present at all times when preforming care. As nurses we are often dealing with patients when they are in vulnerable positions. By showing empathy and compassion, we are able to improve a patients overall care and experience while in a time of need.  Throughout this paper I only touched on how empathy and compassion can be applied to three of Watson’s 10 caritive factors. That being said when looking through all the factors, it is apparent that the main component of Watson’s theory is being empathetic and compassionate. As a student you are taught how to be empathetic and how to be compassionate but learning about it is not the same as implementing these skills. I have always thought that empathy is something that cannot be taught, and even still I believe this. I do think people can learn ways to improve their natural empathy and enhance their showing of empathy, but they never feel it as deeply as others do. My main take away from this paper and from all my clinical experiences is that at the end of the day we are all people and we all feel and experience things in different ways. As a nurse it is your job to make your patient feel comfortable and important when providing care to them. It might take an extra second to show compassion or empathy, but that second can make a huge difference in a patient care. 

Reference

Cara, C. (2003). A Pragmatic View of Jean Watson’s Caring Theory, www.humancaring.org (under “continuing education”)

Compassion. (n.d.) In Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compassion

Empathy. (n.d.) In Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compassion

Wagner , A. L. (2010). Core Concepts of Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring/Caring Science. Retrieved November 30, 2019, from https://elearn.une.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-2031804-dt-content-rid-18921604_1/courses/20250-202002-NSG-351-A/20250-202002-NSG-351-A_ImportedContent_20190808045954/FOR SUE WATSON’S THEORY OF CARING CARITAS READING.pdf.

Watson, J. (2008). Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring (rev. ed.), Boulder: University Press of Colorado.

Watson, J. (n.d.). THEORY OF HUMAN CARING. Retrieved December 1, 2019, from https://elearn.une.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-2031805-dt-content-rid-18921605_1/courses/20250-202002-NSG-351-A/20250-202002-NSG-351-A_ImportedContent_20190808045954/FOR SUE 2019 WATSON’S THEORY OF CARING REQUIRED READING.pdf.

Coming into this school year I knew I would face many new challenges that where both exciting and intimidating. Thus far, this academic year has been like no other schooling I have faced so far, and it has challenged me physically, mentally, and emotionally. One thing that has pushed me to keep going has been the goals I set for myself both in this class and also personally. I honestly feel that if I did not go into this year with goals set both academically and personally, I would not have pushed myself as hard as I have and held myself to the standard I do. Often times as a student I will push my personal needs and well-being to the side and focus on the assignment I need to get done or the test I need to study for. This may have benefited me academically in the short term but as we have learned through this course, and other, if you don’t take care of yourself you can’t fully take care of others. Although I have not fully fulfilled all my goals from the beginning of the year, I would say that I have been more aware of these aspects of selfcare and working towards fulfilling my personal goals. Throughout this paper I will reference “transtheoretical model of behavioral change” in reference to my readiness to act on goals and improve or change my behavior. There are six stages of change that are as follows; precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and relapse. Most of my goals are at the contemplation or action stage since going into this assignment I was already aware that I needed to make some changes in my life.   

As I stated in the Wellness Self Care Goal Sheet, my first and most important goal was to work on my emotional wellness. When I took the IHWA questionnaire in September, I scored a 5 out of 20 on my emotional wellness section. As of November 3^rd, when I took the questionnaire again, my score has drastically improved to now being a 15 out of 20. This surpassed the 10 out of 20 goal I had originally set in my strategies for attaining my goal which is something I am proud of and will keep working at.  I talked extensively about how I hold in my feelings and am not able to express my emotions in an appropriate way and that I was going to work on being more open with my friends and family. Of all the goals I set, this is the goal I was most determined to achieve because it is something that I knew would help me grow as a person. 

For too long I have held everything in because I didn’t want to hurt or offend anyone, and it has taken a lot of time to realize how much of a toll it takes to always act indifferent. Over the past couple months, I have pushed myself to be more open about when I’m stress, annoyed, anxious, or just need to talk to someone. All though this hasn’t been an easy thing to do, I have noticed that the more I do talk to others the easier it has become. Being more open has also helped me to become closer with some people in my life, especially fellow classmates, because we are all going through the same things and understand what the other is going through. It’s also been a huge personal awakening that expressing your feelings and emotions to others doesn’t make you weak or a burden, it just makes you human. At the beginning of the semester I was definitely at the determination stage of the transtheoretical model but as time has passed and I have had time to work on my emotional wellness I would now say I’m comfortably in the action stage. Although I have seen some improvements, there is still more that I can and will work on when it comes to being more open and willing to share emotion and I think this openness will come with more practice. 

The second goal I set for myself was to work on my physical and nutritional wellbeing. Although on the IHWA questionnaire, physical exercise and physical nutritional wellbeing are two separate sections, I really think that these two sections go hand and hand for me, so I grouped them into my own category.  I know that for me personally when I am active and go to the gym or at least for a walk during the day I feel better and am more motivated. That being said, I often don’t take the time to take care of myself in that way because I am tired and overwhelmed with the amount of work I need to get done. Also, now that I live off campus and no longer have a meal plan, I am responsible for preparing all my own meals and making sure I go grocery shopping. At the beginning of the semester I made the goals for myself that I would cook myself a healthy dinner and try and work out or at least go for a walk every day. All though this was a goal I really wanted to work on, it is something that I have not made a priority. At the beginning of the semester I was going to the gym or walking on the beach every day and making sure that I bought lots of fruit, vegetables, and other healthy foods for dinner and lunches. As the school year picked up and the workload increased, I started skipping my walks and buy more foods that where convenient or some weeks not even buying any food. 

I noticed that as my physical and nutrition wellbeing declined so did my overall well-being. Now at a little over the halfway point in the semester I am starting again to make exercise and eating well a priority. The first time I took the IHWA questionnaire I scored a 10 out of 20 on the physical and nutritional wellbeing portion. This was not a terrible score, but I also knew I needed to improve on it to better myself. Now when I took it again on November 3^rd, I scored a 6 out of 20 since the amount of real food I eat, and my mindful eating habits have declined. Most of the time when I’m eating now, it is a microwave meal that I eat in front of the TV while I am doing homework or studying.  Based on the transtheoretical model, I would say that at the beginning of the semester I was at the preparation stage before the Goal Assignment and then entered into the action stage where I was really focused on eating right and working out. By about mid-October I would say that I relapsed into my old ways and was back to eating what was convenient and not nutritious or healthy. Now though I am working my way back into the action stage of getting and preparing health food and working out every day. This is something I am really working towards since physical and nutritional wellbeing contributes strongly to overall wellbeing. 

Overall making, setting, and achieving my goals is something that I strive to do every day. Although thus far in the school year I have not necessarily achieved all the goals I have set for myself, I have been more aware of my overall health and wellbeing and am working on improving myself. The biggest change I have made and need to continue making is managing my time and not letting myself get overwhelmed with my schoolwork. As my Mom has always said, “school is your job right now,” and although this is true it is also my job to take care of myself and make sure that I am doing well physically, emotionally, and mentally. This class and the lessons we have learned about selfcare have been eye-opening to how much taking care of yourself effects all aspects of your life. As I have been writing this paper and reflecting on the changes I have made and the changes I still need to make, I’m re-inspired and motivated to put in the much-needed effort to achieve my goals and benefit my life for the future. By learning how to take care of myself now, I am creating a foundation of selfcare for the future.  

Reference

Integrative Health and Wellness Assessment ™. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.deeprootshealing.org/integrative-health-wellness-assessment/.

Martin, K. (2009). Research Center for Stroke and Heart Disease.  Retrieved Sept. 5, 2013 fromhttp://www.hearttruthnewyork.org/content/Prochaska_Transtheoretical_Model.pdf

What is a nurse? Or better yet, what isn’t a nurse? When I was looking for a piece of art that encompassed a nurse, I was having an extremely difficult time capturing all the duties I thought where important. I felt like no image I came across captured what it truly meant to be a nurse. That is when I a stumbled upon this picture and it made me stop. There is something about this picture that completely captures what it means to be a nurse, in my eyes. The compassionate touch of the nurse, the trust the patient has, but most of all the calm caring expression on the nurses face. In that moment she isn’t thinking of the thousands of other things she has to get done, she isn’t trying to rush him, or being evasive. No, her one and only focus and care is giving this patient his medication and making sure that he is getting all she can give him in that moment. That is what I think it means to be a nurse. A person that patients can trust and rely on. Someone that will be there for them and help them when they often need it the most.