Final Day

Today is the final day of class for my current crop of students. (Our program is condensed, so students do 1 class per month- all day, everyday. Now you know why its so hard to write during a teaching month.) As this fresh group of students move on to their next course, I have the same anxieties. Did I focus on the most important maternal-infant health issues? Did I say enough about the importance of breastfeeding? Did I stimulate new ways of thinking about maternal healthcare? Did I cause alarm about cesarean rates and the inherent risk it causes? Did I plant the seeds of love in someone's heart for this area of nursing? Was I kind and gentle in my approach? Was I creative enough, tough enough, lenient enough? This teaching thing is such a dance of opposites. I'm so proud of my students, but more importantly, I want them to be proud of themselves for what they have accomplished this month. Today, after the final exam, we will have lunch together, catered by my mother, the 'evangelist', followed by her doing a 'blessing of hands'. She brings her blessed oil, and if they wish (totally voluntary) she will pray over them and annoint their hands. This is a small ritual I offer my students that they seem to enjoy. It means a lot to my mother to come do it. My peers and I are serious about sending good nurses out into the community, and I want them to have a sense that they are on a 'holy mission'. I want to send them out (or onto the next course) with prayers and blessings and a sense that they are a part of something larger than themselves. You could say, helping them find their mission, is my mission...