When I decided to go into nursing, I did so to help people. To heal and educate, to give some compassion to those that are in need of help, to lessen the effects of disease. Helping people has always been my calling. It has never been about the money. I would never and could never make a decision for my patient based on how it will affect my pay or my financial outcome. I make a decision for the best of the patient. When I was new to nursing, I believed the doctor did as well. I admit I used to have an unusually optimistic view of people and the world around me. Unfortunately, over the last few years I have seen things that have forced me to change my views, and all I can say is that humanity has a price, and the cost is rising.

At one job I was asked to give one IV anti-emetic over another because the price was lower and/or the reimbursement was higher on one versus the other. I also worked for a doctor that would tell the patient a treatment wasn’t a good option because the patient’s insurance wouldn’t pay for it. I would also be asked what insurance the patient had prior to the doctor seeing the patient.

I wish I had known this before going into medicine. If I had, I may have made a different choice. Seeing this has really made me lose faith in humanity. I see it everyday in stores and on the road, people indifferent or rude towards one another. However, in a setting where I expect compassion and respect, I am seeing something quite unexpected. It is disheartening and frustrating. It makes me lose respect for the people I have looked up to my entire life. I understand not all doctors are like this, but unfortunately, there are enough that I need to speak up.

Doctors took an oath to help those in need. They have people looking to them for help in getting better and giving them all the information they need to make informed medical decisions. They have a moral obligation to their patients. Doctors have to put their patients health above their cash filled pockets. Unfortunately, many patients cannot see this and think the doctor is giving them all the information, when, in reality, that isn’t always true.

Patients need to advocate for themselves and, as nurses, we need to educate and advocate for our patients as well. These doctors need to ask themselves why they got into medicine. Our doctors should be in this field for the love of people and medicine, not for the paycheck they see each time a patient walks in the door.

It was then I was on a fast track into medicine, originally wanting to become an MD. I decided after college and seeing a lot of my friends in medical school that I wanted something different. After some tough questions and some soul searching, I decided to go into nursing. The following is a true story that started the year I began volunteering and concluded many years later…

Mr. Gillespie
When I was in seventh grade, I was a candy striper at a local hospital in my town. I volunteered about thirty to forty hours a week during the summer. Most of the time I spent there was with Mr. Gillespie. He never had any visitors, and nobody seemed to care about his condition.

I spent many days there holding his hand and talking to him, helping with anything that needed to be done. He became a close friend of mine, even though he responded with only an occasional squeeze of my hand. Mr. Gillespie was in a coma.

I left for a week to vacation with my parents, and when I came back, Mr. Gillespie was gone. I didn’t have the nerve to ask any of the nurses where he was, for fear they might tell me he had died. So with many questions unanswered, I continued to volunteer there through my eighth-grade year.

Several years later, when I was a junior in high school, I was at the gas station when I noticed a familiar face. When I realized who it was, my eyes filled with tears. He was alive! I got up the nerve to ask him if his name was Mr. Gillespie, and if he had been in a coma about five years ago. With an uncertain look on his face, he replied yes. I explained how I knew him, and that I had spent many hours talking with him in the hospital. His eyes welled up with tears, and he gave me the warmest hug I had ever received.

He began to tell me how, as he lay there comatose, he could hear me talking to him and could feel me holding his hand the whole time. He thought it was an angel, not a person, who was there with him. Mr. Gillespie firmly believed that it was my voice and touch that had kept him alive.

Then he told me about his life and what happened to him to put him in the coma. We both cried for a while and exchanged a hug, said our good-byes and went our separate ways.

Although I haven’t seen him since, he fills my heart with joy every day. I know that I made a difference between his life and his death. More important, he has made a tremendous difference in my life. I will never forget him and what he did for me: he made me an angel.

Author: Angela Sturgill, A 5th Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul, pg. 6

About a year ago, I began teaching at two different nursing schools in the area to see if I really loved and belonged in teaching. Since then, I have discovered many things I never knew about life and nursing until I felt the desire to share my thoughts and advice with my students. That is what started this whole site. I am new to blogging and am learning as I go. Please bear with me in this new adventure of mine. I want to share my views and lessons with anyone who wants to read and also have an open forum with those who also want to share.

Please check back often and speak your mind so we can learn and teach each other. There is so much to share on this journey in nursing. We all travel a unique path, with different experiences and life views. I want to share my path with you…