I work in an environment that is both challenging and rewarding. Your goal as you leave your home each day is to put aside your own problems and prepare to meet your patients with a warm countenance. It is challenging because life altering events happen on a regular basis for which, as your patient's advocate and first caregiver, you have to constantly apply your nursing judgment; it is hard work; it is draining when your patient dies or you feel that you just couldn't make them feel better that shift - that you did everything you could sometimes is little consolation; and you have to learn to interact with people from all walks of life. But it is also rewarding because you directly impact the lives of people and their families everyday. You meet great people from whom you learn and sometimes get to share a prayer or a mutual standing on a subject. You get to take this feeling with you, as you leave the hospital at the end of the shift, that you were part of the care team to make someone feel better.
Through my experiences I've learned that there are some key guidelines to being a good caregiver:
- Regard the people you take care of like they were your parent, child, or sibling.
- Know that they are individuals too with private lives and remember to respect their privacy.
- Give them autonomy and choices and the chance to be part of a decision-making process whenever possible because often times that autonomy is temporarily taken away in the hospital setting.
- Do not take things personally (sometimes it's hard) because it's often not personal. These people are at the worst stages of their lives, maybe a turning point, maybe just received devastating news, etc, and are simply trying to cope with their individual situations.
- Make time. Stop to listen, even for a bit, to a personal story, to empathize, to bring that extra warm blanket, to explain what you're about to do.
And there are others...but these come to mind right now.
