Nurses are humans too

I have been reflecting on nursing and informatics  (the blend of technology that is nursing these days). It’s for class.

I think that nurses struggle to be human sometimes. The patient is so poised on a precipice always, where one wrong move, or phrase, or miscalculation, or incorrect data entry can lead to disaster that nurses are aware of this always.  Keeping patients safe is what we do, however that means to us.

But, nurses struggle with that sometimes.

Nurses also struggle with how much patients and their families don’t know or don’t understand.

I remind myself often that my knowledge bank is not the patient’s knowledge base. Of course they don’t know/comprehend/understand. Illness is far beyond their purview.

I use a big word, where a small easily understandable word is better. See also purview, previous paragraph.

I use five words when one would do.

But I am human, not a machine.

And that’s okay.