Week 12: 3/31/11

Outside in the beautifully sunny weather we had class about stresses and concerns that come with being a health care professional. Learning about some of the pressures that come with working as a nurse helped prepare me as to what is to come. It also will help me build healthy coping mechanisms. These coping mechanisms will help me be successful in my career.

Right now this is important to me because it has helped me become aware of the stress and pressure that I have now as a student nurse. I have realized some stressors that I can eliminate or reduce. During this phase of life I put a lot of pressure on my self to be successful in school. I also put a lot of pressure on myself because I procrastinate certain assignments. So after this lesson I need to put more focus on just getting my assignments done on time and before the day its do.

I have noticed that when I am most stressed I am actually most productive. But I can only live that way for so long and then I crash, neglecting other obligations because my body needs rest. I have learned where my limits are and how much stress is too much. I work at an assisted living facility as a CNA and there have been times when I have worked 10 or more days in a row. By the 7th or 8th day I become impatient and uncaring to the residents I help. I become lazier and less efficient in my care. I now know how many days I can work in a row before I feeling like killing someone.

One of the main skills I need to develop that will help in the future is prioritizing. Right now I am not very good at prioritizing but it will become necessary for me to be able to do as I take care of patients. I need to be able to prioritize which patients are most important to take care of first and which nursing requirements need to be accomplished first and which can wait. I think so much focus gets put on making sure we chart that some nurses prioritize that above patient care. Really it should be the opposite. All patient care should come before any nursing requirements.

It is important for me to learn these things now so that in the future I will know how to cope with stress and effectively reduce and deal with them. I believe that I will give my best care to a patient if I take good care of myself first. Learning to reduce unnecessary stress will help keep my body healthy and will allow me to be most efficient with my patient care. Part of taking care of my self will involve knowing how I cope with heavy workloads and at what point I feel like I’m going to break.