I was watching the news last night, and I saw a story about the current shortage of qualified nurses. This is a serious problem that hospital management should be doing more to solve. As a person with extensive medical history, I know that nurses are essential and deserve the utmost respect.
Nurses are involved in all the important parts of a patient’s hospital experience. First of all, the nurse is the first person that the patient interacts with. They are the ones who ask the important questions. Without them, doctors would waste treatment time by trying to both examining and asking basic questions. Moreover, nurses are experts at doing unpleasant, but necessary, things, like bloodwork. For example, the nurses at Kosair (now Norton’s) Children’s Hospital were angels for almost always being about to draw my blood by only having to insert the needle once. I know that this wasn’t easy, because my veins were notoriously delicate when I was a child. Plus, getting bloodwork done at the hospital was so much less painful than at a doctor’s office. Lastly, nurses are the ones who share with patients longer than the doctors. They are the ones who check on patients throughout the night. I’ll admit that younger me hasn’t always been appreciative of that, but looking back, that constant presence was calming.
The work of nurses is so much more emotionally draining than the work of doctors. Don’t get me wrong, doctors are heroes, but the nurses take the time to connect emotionally with the people that they treat. They deserve all of the support, respect, and praise that we can give them. God bless and protect all nurses