Kamryn Compton
Professor Carter
Nursing 202
Critical Care Reflection
April 19, 2020
In the book, Critical Care, there are several occurrences of patients’ deaths. Choose one account and discuss your impressions of this experience. What, if anything, surprised you about the situation? What are your feelings about dealing with patient deaths?
In Theresa Brown’s novel Critical Care, she discusses her first “Condition A.” Brown’s first Condition A (cardiac arrest) was a middle-aged woman with lung cancer. This death stuck out to me because of my interest in trauma. What surprised me the most about this particular situation was how quickly a patient’s health status can change. Her patient was stable one moment and the next moment she had “blood spilling out of her mouth and nose with absolutely no control.” In her novel, Brown stated, “There is a word for what happened to my patient – exsanguination – but the word itself does not capture the experience of looking into someone’s eyes as her life literally bleeds out of her.” I thought about this a lot and truly cannot imagine this happening to me. I feel that everything I have learned about nursing is how to care for and treat my patient to the best of my ability. I feel like no one could ever teach you or prepare you for that moment. But as an aspiring trauma nurse and a future military nurse I know that this will be me one day and I hope that I can not only provide the best care possible to my patients but also provide comfort in unforeseen and unpreventable situations like this example.
In the chapter, Switch, Theresa Brown writes, “But nursing is too difficult and too important a job for help to come with a hierarchy.” Describe one example of where you see that hierarchy manifested and one example where you saw more egalitarian treatment in the book. This can include relationships between doctor and nurse, nurse and nurse, doctor and patient, or nurse and patient.
In Theresa Brown’s novel “Critical Care” you can see an example where hierarchy was manifested on her floor by floor clinicians, Crystal and Anna. Brown states that Crystal and Anna see themselves as disciplinarians, but often came across as bullies. Brown says, “Their criticisms are rebukes most often fell on the newest and most inexperienced nurses.” This exhibits a form of unwanted hierarchy within the health care team. An example where I saw a more egalitarian treatment was after Brown’s first condition A, when Mona, the director of the sister unit of Brown’s floor came to check on her to make sure she was okay. Mona offered her condolences and shared a personal situation she once experienced. Mona went out of her way to check in with Brown and I think that was very nice of her to do. Or when a resident told Brown she had done a good job after her patient, Sean, had to be transferred to the PICU. Those moments stood out because, as a new nurse, I feel moments like this will be very encouraging and memorable in helping me to keep working hard and not get discouraged after a difficult day.
Choose one section of the book (sentence, passage, chapter) that was particularly meaningful to you and explain why.
The quote I found particularly meaningful while reading “Critical Care” was when Brown stated, “Doctors diagnose, treat, and prescribe – work central to healing – but nurses really do tend to the whole person”. I like this quote because I feel like it captures the essence of nursing and emphasizes the fact that nurses care for the whole person. A nurse not only works to help treat the problem a patient presents with, but they also care for the human dimensions composing the whole person. Nurses care for the physical, emotional, sociocultural, spiritual, environmental, and intellectual aspects of a person – the whole person. To me this is what separates a nurse from other health care workers. A nurse is the first one you see for an initial assessment when arriving to a medical facility for treatment and the last one you see before being discharged. They are your teacher, advocate, and confidant – helping to care for the whole person.
Theresa Brown relates the following poem by Frank Bidart to a career in nursing: I hate and love. Ignorant fish, who even wants the fly while writhing. How do you react to the idea of loving and hating a career in nursing? What aspects of the nursing profession do you see on both sides?
I am currently in Nursing 202 with 64 other students. At the beginning of this course we were asked “Why do you want to be a nurse?” The common response is “because I want to help people.” Nursing, as defined in our textbook is “a person who nourishes, fosters, and protects and who is prepared to take care of the sick, injured, aged, and dying people.” While rewarding, nursing is a very difficult job. Like many professions, one could imagine that nursing brings aspects that one would both love and hate. I picture myself loving my role as a nurse because I too want to help people; help the sick and injured get better, bring a smile to someone, or be a hand to hold on the worst day of someone’s life. On a personal level, I picture myself sometimes not loving the long hours, working on holidays, losing a patient, dealing with a distressed patient or patient’s family. I think any of us can envision the reward, and I am sure all of us can imagine the sorrow and stress related to such tough work.
Works Cited
Brown, Theresa. Critical Care: a New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between. HarperOne, 2011.
Taylor, Carol, et al. Fundamentals of Nursing: the Art and Science of Person-Centered Care. Wolters Kluwer, 2019.
