I've been away for a couple of weeks on a trip where I met nurses from all corners of the globe. When I set off for another country a full day away from the US, I knew this would not be an ordinary NICU nursing conference. And as promised, I did learn a lot about modifications of neonatal care in low-resource areas. But more than that, my entire perspective on neo nursing has changed.
If you're a nurse in an area that has the computer access to read this blog, consider yourself fortunate. You're ahead of thousands of nurses, many of whom would really just be content with an uncontaminated water supply. Before you complain about your next assignment, think about the incredible people I met who decribed the following situations.
What if you worked in a hospital so overcrowded that you weaned preemies to open crib at a kilogram even? What if, at that same place, you were expected to utilize forced cup feeding to meet a goal of discharge between 1400 and 1500 grams?
What if your neonatologist was a "general physician and surgeon" who primarily treated and operated on adults? What if, on the same unit, 28 weeks was the limit of viability?
What if you went to work every day with the knowledge of a 46% mortality rate hanging over your head... and while that was hard, it was the infant abandonment issue that really killed the morale?
What if your unit director had never even heard of a cord blood gas?
What if you remember seeing an Ambu bag in nursing school, but you hadn't come across one in five years because your current facility didn't even have an oxygen source?
What if you worked in a huge ward of 60-70 babies, both sick and well, and you were the only nurse supported by a few unlicensed assistants?
What if you were a bedside nurse who was told that insertion of a peripheral IV was a physician function, because as a nurse you risk "damaging the patient's organs?"
In the global picture, we have it made here in the states. I don't know about you, but at least for this month of thanksgiving, I'm resolving not to complain.
If you're a nurse in an area that has the computer access to read this blog, consider yourself fortunate. You're ahead of thousands of nurses, many of whom would really just be content with an uncontaminated water supply. Before you complain about your next assignment, think about the incredible people I met who decribed the following situations.
What if you worked in a hospital so overcrowded that you weaned preemies to open crib at a kilogram even? What if, at that same place, you were expected to utilize forced cup feeding to meet a goal of discharge between 1400 and 1500 grams?
What if your neonatologist was a "general physician and surgeon" who primarily treated and operated on adults? What if, on the same unit, 28 weeks was the limit of viability?
What if you went to work every day with the knowledge of a 46% mortality rate hanging over your head... and while that was hard, it was the infant abandonment issue that really killed the morale?
What if your unit director had never even heard of a cord blood gas?
What if you remember seeing an Ambu bag in nursing school, but you hadn't come across one in five years because your current facility didn't even have an oxygen source?
What if you worked in a huge ward of 60-70 babies, both sick and well, and you were the only nurse supported by a few unlicensed assistants?
What if you were a bedside nurse who was told that insertion of a peripheral IV was a physician function, because as a nurse you risk "damaging the patient's organs?"
In the global picture, we have it made here in the states. I don't know about you, but at least for this month of thanksgiving, I'm resolving not to complain.