NursingZen

I know, I wrote hardly a word about Year 1 of my Master’s of Nursing program at UCSF last year, and suddenly it’s Year 2. That’s because I was taking a few unexciting, required, graduate courses (theory, research methods, other intro classes) while juggling life as a new grad nurse in both a hospital and a community clinic. Obviously, school became a third priority.

   This year should be a different story. This year it’s all about the core Nurse Practitioner coursework and clinical residencies.

Today was the first day of class and I felt as giddy as I did on the first days of elementary and high schools. Today a detailed, well-written syllabus and my brand-spanking new Advanced Health Assessment textbook were a joy to behold and read…

And after many doubts and much back and forth in the past year, I’m happy with my decision to do the Master’s program over three years instead of two. I feel I have a more well-rounded life than if I were to be a student only. Although the nursing school officially discourages students from veering off the prescribed three-year MEPN-Master’s path and the two-year Master’s path, the Adult Nurse Practitioner faculty has been understanding and supportive of students who need to make changes along the way. I have been one lucky duck and cannot wait to get cracking!

Bud Light Lime. Apparently it’s all the rage in some parts of the country. I learned this on my field trip to Budweiser brewery, courtesy of my Health Hazards and Safety class. It’s not your typical class. We have lectures about health hazards and safety in the workplace and then make site visits throughout the Bay area. Budweiser’s spiel was about its policies and procedures that address the health and safety of its employees. Without getting into the nitty gritty of all the different policies, some of the crowd-pleasers include: an onsite gym, $100 for employees after every annual physical, a ping pong table, and a foosball table.

An irony: Employees get cases of free beer every year and as prizes for various activities…yep, drink up and fatten the liver!

I love being in a small class again … and just in time for my flagging spirit. It’s a relief to talk to people who are going through some of the same learning and growing processes as I am. Some of them were nurses for several years before grad school, some come from totally different worlds, but everyone seems to be open-minded, outspoken, and willing to defy and resist the homogenization and impersonalization of regular hospital nursing. Or, maybe I’m projecting.

Sigh. I’ve been trying filter out my recent negative feelings, because well, complaining is a drag for everyone. But I’m human and this is nursing we’re talking about after all. I hope to write constructively about some recent challenges with hospital culture. I’ll try to work out the issues offline before posting them.

This week was finals week for the winter quarter. Next up is a week of spring break. Whoo hoo. Time has accelerated in recent months; if I think about it too long, I might panic, so instead I’ll just sip my caipirinha, marvel at the interminable feather-grey sky, and count my blessings.

Example of a blessing (as a pathetic way of summing up the 1st half of the year): I’m happy to say that doing the Master’s program part-time was the right decision for me. Yay. Inititally I felt pangs of regret and wistfulness when I saw my MEPN friends walking merrily to class together. Or if they were harried, they were at least present to support one another. Poor me was usually alone because I had only two classes that most others weren’t taking yet…

But by the middle of this quarter, I didn’t mind feeling out of sync because I knew I was moving at a speed that’s right for me. While the NP classes and clinicals sound exciting, I’m content to focus on general graduate classes while trying to get comfortable with this wholly consuming identity of “registered nurse.”

I almost can’t remember the life of writer-reader-a.k.a.-dreamer. This isn’t a sorry or wistful statement; it’s just fact right now.

Maybe being a nurse doesn’t have to be all-consuming or so damn serious, but right now I don’t know how else to do it, if I want to do it kind of well.