Life has whisked me away, but writing once again draws me back. I just completed another class of OB students and am planning for the summer class. It is my challenge to present OB nursing in a wholistic, humane way, since the reality of my chosen profession seems anything but. How do I teach the rigors of nursing care for the childbearing family and at the same time not approach this as 'business as usual'. Having a baby is not the same as having your gallbladder removed. It should be a spiritual, family-centered event designed to welcome the newborn in a respectuful, humane way. The things I teach are a direct contradiction to what they see in the hospital when they go for clinicals. The students are smart. They are quick to pick up on the inconsistances and I watch as they struggle with questions it all provokes. The best learning is in this struggling. It is in these struggles that they find that cognition and psychomotor skills come easily- but values, attitutes and beliefs- these are harder won. Yet these nontangibles will shape them more as nurses than knowing how to hang and IV bag or read a monitor strip. It is my constant challenge as an instructor to impart nursing as a noble profession, and yet constantly examine the devil that is in the details.
No comments:
Post a Comment