Ansley Bain: For Want of a Better

My first night walking into the emergency room I was a nervous wreck. I was 6 months into my externship, so I had no reason to be nervous in a clinical setting. I already knew that I would be working under a registered nurse, helping to treat patients and meet any of their physical or emotional needs. But this was a new environment: I was walking into a department that nurses have vastly conflicting feelings about--they either love it or hate it.

Immediately I was thrown into the fire. In our emergency room, there are around 35 beds. This means there are only 35 beds available for patients at one time. This night every bed was occupied, with a full waiting room on top of that. Internally I was freaking out. How were we going to take care of everyone? With this many people coming through our rooms, how could we be sure that they are getting adequate care? But to every registered nurse there, this was a normal Thursday night.

I was tested not only in my knowledge of disease processes and treatment plans, but also in my nursing skills. This means my ability to do things such as IVs, catheters, giving medications, and taking vital signs. I loved the challenge of the unknown, never knowing what was truly wrong with a patient and having to use my own knowledge, experience or even just intuition to know what tests to run or next steps for each patient. It was in these first hours where it was confirmed that I had chosen the right career for myself, and I was so excited to be able to get experience before graduation. I was running along behind every nurse, they would pull me to see anything interesting, and they would let me do anything that they had in their orders just so that I would be able to get experience. It may have been all new to me, doing everything I had only learned in school in the real world, but it was rewarding and proved that I had actually been learning something all these years in school.

The night continued, getting people in and out of our rooms. One by one, we cleared out the waiting room and had emptied half of the rooms that were previously full. We were able to sit down for the first time around 2am. But not for long. We received a call from EMS about a patient that they were bringing in, and from the sound of their voice we knew it was not going to be pretty.

Through the doors the EMT and paramedic walked a frail elderly woman. She was skin and bones and nonverbal. The EMS workers stated that they had never seen anything as bad as the conditions she was living in. She was under the care of one of her children, but it was obvious that they were not fit to be a sole caretaker. This woman had sores all on her back from being in one position for too long. She was dirty, like she had not been cleaned in weeks. EMS reported that she had been in a home infested with mice and bugs, and one was even on the verge of tears and begged us not to send her back to the house. This was unlike anything I had ever seen. We had encountered many sick patients already that night, but what I was now faced with was a case of neglect. Sure, we would have some interventions for the sores on her back, but the main problem here was the lack of care she was receiving in her home. For a second, I was perplexed. How would we treat someone like this? Theres no medicine or tests or scans to run that would fix this.

I was immediately brought back to my days of working in a nursing home. I had worked as a certified nursing assistant throughout school, and we provided services to the residents of the home. This included the basics like bathing, brushing teeth and combing hair. These are simple acts that we take for granted while we are able bodied enough to do them. These residents would be dependent on us for their basic needs, and would always look and say they felt so much better afterwards. So I jumped in. I found all the supplies that I needed- shampoo, soap, toothbrush, lotion, a gown and a fresh pair of socks. I changed her, bathed her, washed her hair and did all that I could to get her as clean as possible. It was rewarding to see her smile at me when it was all said and done. When I came out my nurse said that we had “made her feel human again”, and I am sure that was the case.

While I had spent this night of uncertainty running around learning new things and loving every minute of it, it was there at the end of my shift that I was thrown back into what was familiar. Yes, it was nice to learn all of the skills and things that may boost my head up, but doing whatever I could for my patients is the heart of nursing. Even if that means doing things that are down and dirty. Being able to “make someone feel human again” is all that we are ever after.

Florence Nightingale said “I use the word nursing for want of a better.”. Entering this profession, there are no skills or knowledge that amount to the care and compassion that I could show my patients. No medicines help without encouragement to take them. No healing happens if they are on the wrong diet. Trouble breathing can sometimes be fixed by simply repositioning a patient to make them more comfortable. These things are the real world side of nursing that I would have never gotten to experience without my breakaway. The nurses I worked with tested me and prepared me for my future career well. Learning new things and skills was definitely needed and appreciated, but every time I think of the most valuable patient and experience that I had I think of that night and that patient because it made me evaluate my skills in the areas that matter most.

 Ansley Bain is a senior nursing major from Greenwood, SC. She completed a nurse extern program through Self Regional Healthcare for her breakaway. She will graduate December 2022 and will work in Self Regional Healthcare’s Emergency Department after graduation.