NursingZen

Three months of culture shock at the community clinic gave my ego a mean bruising, but it’s recovered and I’m suddenly enjoying my job there one day a week. I’ve learned to focus my energy on the patients and on my own growth.

For example, I’m having conversations with patients that I had no skills for three months ago. Last week, a patient came in concerned about his blood pressure. I asked him if he smoked and he said yes. I asked him whether he knew that smoking increases his risk for hypertension, coronary artery disease, and stroke. He said no. I scolded him, explained in simple terms how smoking constricts blood vessels, and scolded him again. (All this I learned by listening to a health podcast in Cantonese, over and over again.) A more seasoned Chinese nurse might have pulled out other culturally competent communication tools (listed below), but this time, I was simply happy that I could bring myself to scold him and speak well enough to be understood.

In another cultural setting, I might have taken a different, softer approach, but since working at this clinic, I’ve observed the following about communications between Chinese providers and Chinese patients:
- our patients are deferential to doctors and nurses, and expect us to speak to them authoritatively
- old Chinese people can be sassy — and to be heard you have to be sassy back to them
- it’s not rude or offensive to raise your voice
- sarcasm can be quite effective

These are not communication skills that will get taught at any politically correct school; they come out of real life. Needless to say, we all know that these things are not generalizable to any providers or patients outside of my clinic!!

Once again, I’d like to try to pick up from where I left off in October. I hope at least a few readers are checking in periodically. Since my last entry:

- I have renewed optimism.

- I finished the fall quarter of the UCSF Master’s of Nursing program. I’m pursuing my Master’s part-time over three years (instead of two years full-time). I’m starting with two classes per quarter in the first year and perhaps three or four classes in the second and third years.

- I cut back on my hours at the community clinic to one day a week so that I could start a part-time acute care job at a hospital. I’m a Staff Nurse I, which indicates less than six months experience.  Being a new nurse is a highly coveted role that one thinks back on with warm, fuzzy memories!

All nurses will hear only sarcasm from the last sentence.

Being a new nurse, especially in an acute care setting, has been a nail-biting adventure. Adjusting to the hospital, my floor, my co-workers, and learning how to handle a full patient load has been crazy. No day is the same. I go in with eyes wide open, adrenaline pumping, and leave either relieved, exhausted, distraught or all of the above.

To center myself each morning before work, I light incense, meditate, and give myself pep talks while walking to work. Each evening after work, I light incense, lie on the floor in the dark, and wait for my head to decongest and legs to unswell.

Next week I’ll be crossing a new threshold: I just completed my 8-week precepted orientation at the hospital and will be on my own starting Tuesday!

<Insert excited, nervous, and disbelieving face here.>

Due to the overwhelming experiences of being a new nurse, my entries here will be focused on … being a new nurse. However, I’m still in school, so I’m more than happy to answer anybody’s questions about the MEPN or Master’s program.

 Happy holidays.