What follows is a bit of a âtough loveâ response. But I hope youâll
accept that it is meant only in kindness and with a genuine wish to help. Iâm very much older than you â unless theyâve started to fill the nurse shortage by training old age pensioners! And what follows is very much the response Iâd give to one of my grandchildren if they were in the same situation. Iâve been frank in my advice, but with purely with aim of helping, so I hope youâll accept it as you perhaps would from
Your own grandmother or other close family member. First of all Iâm truly sorry you are feeling a little overwhelmed and finding it hard to maintain focus. I donât have much to offer except to say that being a nurse is very indeed a huge responsibility so itâs absolutely okay to wonder if you can cope. Iâd be worried about any student nurse who didnât feel it was all too much sometimes. That would suggest to me that theyâre not suitable nurse material. The facts that you recognise the immense importance and also the challenge of what you have taken on is to your credit. But having said that you have volunteered for this so I think you need to try to put any feelings of it being just too much to one side, refuse to focus on that, pushing away any feelings of helplessness, and just get on with the job. Your patients may or may not understand the weight of responsibility on every nurseâs shoulders but, either way, all they really care about is whether you nurse them well â in every sense of that word â and pay attention only to their feelings, physical or psychological, not your own. Put your entire focus on them and not yourself and I guarantee those feelings of being overwhelmed at times â however understandable and even praiseworthy they might be â will fade into nothingness. In short, itâs your job to make them better not fret about yourself.
As for your attention wandering have you talked to those seniors who are involved in your training to explain how you are feeling? Could you ask them for a little patience and, better yet, to notice when you are tuning out and find some cue you can agree on that would help you re-focus? Maybe something humorous like, âKnock! Knock!â.
Also, and this is a real tough love one, I wonder whether you need to take stock and re-examine your choice of career? Are your âabsentâ phases too frequent and too lengthy such that they could make it difficult to perform the job as you would wish to, with full commitment to the care of your patients? Maybe you need to consider a graceful withdrawal and a change of career? Nothing shameful in that. In fact giving up a job you were presumably determined to do if you should find your disability makes impossible to do as well as you hoped is a highly commendable thing to do, and something many others, just as passionate about being a nurse, have had to face before you. Iâm not saying I think you should give nursing up. Not at all. But I am saying now is the time for some deep personal reflection about the challenges of both the job and your disability â our shared disability whatever you may chose to call it â and whether it stands between you and the career youâve chosen.
On the other hand, if your attentional lapses are merely a bit embarrassing for you, and perhaps a little irritating for your colleagues, but have no real impact on your ability to be a good nurse in then you can quite reasonably ask that your colleagues understand and make allowances for your occasional mental absences. If you had a hearing loss or were dyslexic your workplaces would be required by lawâ in the UK anyway â to make any âreasonable adjustmentsâ necessary to enable you to do your job. Okay, nurse training isnât just a job, but the principle surely applies.
So while I applaud you for your awareness of the awesome responsibility being a nurse entails I do think you need to assess honestly how your âfading outâ might affect your ability to do that awesomely demanding job, and maybe think about trying another career path. But if you area confident in your own mind â after honest reflection â that you have what it takes to be a good nurse and that nursing is definitely the right career for you, then you need to tackle the issue head on. You need to discuss with your colleagues and tutors, explain if necessary the reason gif your occasional apparent inattentiveness and how you try to deal with it and then let them know
what help you might need, even if that is only that they pause to check you are still fully focussed when they are giving instructions or information, checking that you have been following and perhaps avoiding any unnecessarily lengthy instructions or information and instead breaking it down into smaller chunks, checking each time that you are still fully engaged.
On your part you are then duty-bound to do everything in your power to minimise the effects of any absences and seek any help you need to try to find ways â maybe including prescribed medication or just finding behavioural techniques â to reduce the impact your occasional lack of focus might have on your pen work performance, and on your colleagues, tutors and your patients.
I very sincerely wish you the very best with this particular career challenge, whichever way you choose to address it. And if you decide to stay in nursing please understand that sometimes feeling overwhelmed may not be pleasant, but it is quite normal at times in a career like nursing. Talk to your more sympathetic colleagues and tutors. Iâm sure theyâve shared that feeling, particularly early in their careers.
Lastly, you seem rather peeved that no one is responding to you here; well I am, because I was formerly involved, before my retirement, in nurse education, mostly post-registration (qualifications) for senior nurses working on a variety of contexts. And also because Iâm an interfering old woman!
But I found myself wondering how many people here you have responded to with support or suggestions? If youâve been very active in helping others then, yes, you have some reason to be upset that you are not getting the support you gave to others. But something in your tone suggests to me that this is not quite the case. So another question you might ask yourself is whether you have âpaid your duesâ by giving others here the kind of help you are now seeking. Forgive me if Iâm wrong and youâve been very active here is helping and supporting others. But, if not, maybe part of your self reflection about your career choice you should also take a look at how many others youâve helped here. And only if the answer to your reflection is that youâve been a very active and supportive team player here do you get to be peeved about other people being inactive and not helping you. Otherwise not.
Regardless, I really do wish you well. Iâve not been very active here and may not be around for a while to respond after youâve read my comments. But I reiterate that anything and everything Iâve said (written) has been just the way Iâd comment if it were one of my deeply-beloved grandchildren or grandnieces or nephew. I hope you take that as a measure of my sincere wish only to help.
