Standard Issue Nurse

I bought my UW purple scrubs a few weeks ago. And a white coat. Oh, the white coat. That symbol of authority and knowledge, of professional solidarity . I am at once proud that I will soon be wearing the uniform of a health care professional, and extremely cautious about it's meaning. I just want to be clear with myself about what kind of provider I'm going to be. I think I need to be pretty solid about my core beliefs and values before I start the standardizing process of nursing school.

There are advantages to standardization. It's nice to know that no matter where you get your care your privacy is protected by HIPPA, and your physician is somewhat bounded by standards of care. On the other hand, our health care system is not as uniform as one might think. There are huge variations in policy and treatment from one hospital to another, and even from one provider to another in the same institution. One week at Evergreen, moms with epidurals can use a squat bar and eat popsicles. The next week they're flat on their back for the duration, and it's ice chips only. One Group Health provider says 4cm and contracting every 5min is not even active labor. Another says if you do this for more than 12 hours you need a cesarean for failure to progress. So, standardization is at once a blessing, a curse, and an illusion.

Nursing school and medical school seem to be designed not only to teach providers the physical and mental skills, the facts, figures and flowcharts of their professions, but to teach them a certain belief system about their profession and about patients. It involves a little bit of de-humanization. Maybe you have to be a tad arrogant and a bit emotionally removed to take people's lives into your hands. I guess all I know is this, that I want to keep a few things about my beliefs and my humanity intact, regardless of what I learn in school. Even if I look like everyone else, in my purple scrubs and white coat, I want to hold onto what makes me human, and passionate about health care in the first place, and what grounds me. So I think I better write it down before I even start school.

1) We all, every one of us, deserve compassion, dignity and respect.
2) Just because I know some things about the human body does not mean I know more about my patient than they know about themselves, and does not make me superior in any way.
3) An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
4) People make good decisions for themselves, when provided with the information and resources they need to make those decisions. If it's not the choice I would make, that's Ok because it's not my choice to make and I'm not the one who lives with the consequences.
5) Most of the time, people need you to listen long and hard before you speak.
6) It's OK to say you're sorry.