I was skeptical at the possibility of being truly moved by a clinical experience. I have been touched deeply by experiences in clinical - by a man at the veterans' hospital who was told his condition was worsening and only had a few weeks to live, and asked me to spend time with his wife to comfort her because he was fine, by a woman recovering from a brain injury after an accident because I was there the first day she was getting into a cardiac chair and I was the first person to bring her to the window and see the outside in months. I have been deeply touched by being part of moments like these in clinical rotations, but when I heard stories of other students actually being moved to tears by their experiences, I thought, Well, I'm sure they just cry easily. I don't think it gets much more intense than this.
Yesterday in clinical proved me wrong.
I was on the Pediatrics Unit, assigned to work with a very young patient who had suffered from a traumatic brain injury that left him with hemiparesis, loss of his ability to speak and respond, and do all of the things a kid his age takes pride doing - running and playing, using the bathroom on his own, eating his own food. The morning was a slow one - I struggled to figure out how I played into things. His parents were so on top of it, they were involved and active and aware, and hopeful above all else. The patient's mother, I found out, was less than a month from giving birth herself and still coming in and tirelessly spending time with her son. The patient's mother was always smiling, always positive and praising her son's ability to pick up his head, to roll, to kick his foot. She was just so full of love.
I felt somewhat awkward coming into the situation because this was actually what had caused me the most anxiety about starting my rotation on the pediatrics unit - having to be a nursing student, learning my way around things in front of parents who knew all of it already and would no doubt shake their heads at me for being such a newbie. I was terrified of not being confident in front of parents.
But these parents were amazing, the kind of people you could feel comfortable around. Even as I was acquainting myself with the tubefeeding equipment, they were happy to say how other nurses they had worked with managed to get the tubing around the special bed and hidden so that the patient wouldn't be able to swipe at it with his good hand.
After a particularly tough physical therapy section, I asked the mother how she was holding up as we walked back to the unit - simple things like if she was able to rest, or if she'd had time to herself to really process with what was going on, or if they had been able to talk as a family about how they could help each other through her son's rehabilitation journey. She talked about how she was tired but coping, and about all the things her son used to do before his injury. I got her some cereal, and checked up on her whenever I came in to do assessments or feeding with her son.
When my shift was about over, I went in to say my goodbyes, make sure tubes were flushed and tucked away until the next feed, and see if there were any last minute things I could help her with. She simply smiled, a little bleary-eyed, and said "Thank you for talking to me."
Thank you for talking to me.
The fact that something so simple had actually made a difference to someone got me right in the heartstrings, and I felt it - the familiar prickly feeling behind my eyes that meant if I didn't skedaddle soon, I would be bawling right in front of a patient's family.
I suddenly realized that something about clinical is truly, truly validating - more than just practicing skills and checking tubes, the act of genuinely caring and being involved with your patients gives you a reason to chug through nursing school, even at points when you feel buried under exams and deadlines. Days like this make you realize that it's truly more than just work.
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