Becoming Nurse Awesome: Love Notes + Life Lessons for a Brand New Nurse

Hi, My name is Melissa and I love being a nurse. After a detour through single motherhood +the corporate world I finally did it; after 20 + yrs of dreaming I became a nurse. Once I got here I was surprised at how many things were different than in my daydreams. There was a lot of fear being used to motivate people, too much focus on tasks and not near enough focus on the best parts of nursing; the connection with other humans. Regulations to protect patients and managements effort to please patients often usurp actual patient needs and nurses, well, we get caught in the middle of staying in compliance and caring for patients, with little time to meet our own needs or think that anything we do is sacred. We don't have to sacrifice one for the other; all the objectives can be met. Easy to NOT see that in the sea of rules we must practice in- Easy to lose focus on the why behind your craft in the middle of all that hub-bub. Easy to focus on how much you cant do instead of what you can. Easy to feel like a commodity rather than a human. Easy to feel not so awesome. I don't like that part of nursing much. You are awesome and I want you to feel it so, when I finished school I decided to try and change it. I believe that nurses have the best of all jobs; we hold space for healing to happen + see people transformed everyday. We bare witness to things that most people cannot even imagine. I look at that space as something sacred, I'm not sure that many nurses do anymore and that bums me out greatly. I am on a mission to change it. I want to help nurses see how incredible they are, how to place self-care first, how to find their own unique medicine and how to balance it all while they infuse every part of their practice with it. Mostly, I want nurses to be happy again and to begin to view their profession as their passion and something they have the power to create. In my ICU job I am a fierce patient advocate. In my spare time I am a fierce advocate for myself and my fellow nurses. It's time for us to take care of ourselves before our patients. It is time for us to feel great about our profession, to feel empowered and inspired each shift. Education. Empowerment. Evolution. That is what I am up to..I hope you will join me.