Work Shadowing at NUH, Nursing

(ZiHan 09S05)

Hi all! This is the speech I prepared for my presentation for my last day for nursing tomorrow and i have decided to post it here for you all to see too! (: Enjoy!
And please pardon me if my English is bad. Thanks!

5 days ago, if you were to tell me the word nursing, the first thing that comes to my mind would be: bathing sickly patients, changing soiled clothes, cleaning dirty stools. But during the course of my work attachment here, when I see nurses obtaining medicine through highly sophisticated machines, nurses busy all day long buzzing like busy little bumblebees and nurses who keep their sunny-side up despite their real tiring roles, only then did I realize that nursing is not as simple as what I use to think.

One of the things I observed during the last few days is that to be a nurse, you must be really responsible. You have to give the right patient the right drug at the right dose through the right route and at the right time. To give the wrong patient the wrong medication could lead to disastrous consequences and you will be held responsible for it. Also, you have to remember to turn bed-ridden patients routinely to prevent them from getting pressure ulcer and to ask patients to sit up every morning to expand their lungs to prevent Pneumonia. How fast your patient recovers, whether complications will occur, will largely depend on the nurses in charge.

In our work shadowing experience as nurses, we are not required to do anything except to observe, ask questions, and be curious. So, I am actually quite happy poking my head into all the unfamiliar stuff around me, throwing random questions at the nurses and staffs.

We are also allowed to see the “behind the curtain” scenes when the nurse draws the curtain. While attached to ward 57(oncology-dealing with cancer patients), 56(cardiac) and 54(bones), one of the most interesting thing I see is on Thursday morning when the surgeons are making their rounds.

While the surgeons are opening up a patient’s dressing to check her wound, I actually saw two deep holes on her chest, like those that are made by the drills along the road works. There’s one on her thigh too! And when the surgeon presses hard on her chest, some squishy, bloody stuff will ooze out. The shape of her ribcage is quite visible as well.

When I enquire about the patient’s condition, Nurse May told me that the lady had just done a by pass surgery due to a blockage in her heart’s blood vessel and they had to take a blood vessel from her thigh and put it in her heart. Something like when the PIE is jam, you use KPE. Doctor Charlie also told me that they sort of sew up her ribcage with wires to let the bones grow back together and the 3 surgeons on their rounds seem rather please with the lady’s improvement…

Nursing has many essences, healing patient, to change their dressing is one of them, but there’s also compassion. I guess everyone would prefer a cheerful, smiling nurse to a “frowning-all-day” nurse. During my attachment, I see plenty of nurses smiling at patients, assisting them with courteous, and even joking around making their patients livelier.

In fact, even the doctors are rather humorous as well! While making their rounds, one of the surgeons told me that it’s really great that I want to work shadow the nurses because most Singaporeans nowadays would shun nursing. He added on saying that nurses are really great people that have really big houses in heaven for doing so much and he only have a small house in heaven… (:

In conclusion, throughout my few days here, I have realized that to become a nurse requires a great deal of passion as they have super long working hours which can last up to twelve hours and very heavy work load. In most of the wards I went to, you can really feel the passion, the motivation and the drive they have for nursing. To me, nursing is a very special job and nurses are very outstanding and noble people. They have always been over shadowed by doctors despite their hard work and effort. I feel that for me, it is very difficult to walk in their shoes. However, I will always respect this team of white shirt “guardian angels” and I feel relieve to know that we have all these really great people who will take care of us when we are in need.

THANK YOU NURSES! :DDD