like shooting stars

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Finally taking a break again from the hectic work of mine today. A day free of admissions, discharges, sending pts to and from surgeries and receiving endless of surgical icu transfers. :D

Got to work in the same shift with my preceptee more often recently. Honestly speaking, I do not know the traits to being a good preceptor because I do not have such experience before. Being a considered "gan cheong" nurse, I tried not to be too harsh or stress her out too much. However, sometimes there's just certain things that you thought it should be clearly understood without explanation while the other receiving end thinks otherwise. I would prefer to spend more time explaining the logic behind our actions so that she does not have to force herself to memorise the endless of steps that each nursing skill comprise but to be able to perform the skills through understanding. Sadly to say, we do not always have the time to explain in the ward. Or maybe I'm just not cut out to be a preceptor. :(

The HO in my ward brought up an interesting topic for discussion with me the other day which I thought it would worth some time to think about it. He felt that nurses are doing mundane stuffs everyday which leaves most of the decision making and patient management to the doctors. Hence he was curious if we as nurses will eventually find ourselves losing our critical thinking ability. The HO was definitely not trying to be offensive which he made it clear in the first place but was just curious about this which he thought would like to hear my opinion. The examples he quoted such as nurses calling him in the middle of the night during his call to inform things which are indeed non-urgent or things which we as nurses can do it too makes me more or less can't help but agree with him at times. I felt that the topic he has brought up is a controversial issue. Being a nurse, I do agree with him to some extend. However, sometimes we are left with no choice when there are policies and protocols which we are obliged to obey. It's true that critical thinking is important be it whether you are a doctor or a nurse. That is why nursing schools have introduced problem-based learning into the curriculum. I am sure most of us as nurses would not want to waste what we have learnt from our professors and try to apply our knowledge in our daily work. I guess SOMETIMES its not easy when we have to apply critical thinking and at the the same time confine ourselves within the boundaries set by the policies and protcols. Or maybe I'm wrong?

Thoughts aside, off to enjoy my rest day now! :D