Essentials of Nursing
Critical Care Essay
In the book, Critical Care by Theresa Brown, Theresa shares her journey in becoming a nurse. She shares many heartfelt stories and details that depict the reality of nursing and all that comes with it. She shares her advice and lessons that she has learned along the way. A patient situation that stuck out to me was the story of Mildred, a patient from rural Pennsylvania.
Mildred was diagnosed with Leukemia. Leukemia is cancer of blood-forming tissues, which is known to be aggressive. She was newly diagnosed, beginning her treatment, so naturally her and her husband had many concerns and questions. The challenges with being Mildred’s nurse were less about medical treatment and more about the human, emotional aspect of nursing. She struggled to find the right way to communicate honestly with Mildred about her illness. She had difficulty finding a way to be explain the reality of the long and hard journey that leukemia cancer treatment is, in terms that she and her husband would understand. She discovered that her patient’s spouse was so afraid of getting a truthful answer to his actual question, that his mind wouldn’t let him ask it.
In overcoming this challenge, Theresa came to the realization that a huge part of caring for patients emotionally was finding the question behind the question. She understood that sometimes a patient or a patient’s family could be so fearful about the answer to a question, that they are too scared to ask it directly. I felt that this aspect of the story was most insightful, regarding the real and hard truth about the toughest conversations in nursing. I personally am interested in nursing because I want to have connections with my patients and be able to provide support for my patients physically and emotionally. I thought Theresa Brown’s explanation of learning how to approach tough conversations and think empathetically about communication with loved ones was so meaningful and identified a huge part of being a nurse. Hearing how she processed and learned throughout this experience was very interesting to me and made me excited to be able to provide that support, comfort, and honesty to patients. This helped me realize that nursing is not only about making sure patients are feeling okay and receiving the care they need, but it is also helping them mentally process and understand the difficult reality of what they are going through and educate them on what is going on in their body.
I agree with Theresa Brown’s evaluation of her interaction with her patient. She walked through her process of coming to understand what her patient was really worried about, and found what I believe is the best way to communicate that to her patient. I believe her points and advice were very insightful and meaningful realizations as a nurse. Theresa Brown emphasizes the importance of empathy and communication skills as a nurse. She explains, “To be a nurse, you have to care. You have to care about people not falling off chairs and hurting themselves, and you have to care about people’s desire to know the truth about their own disease” (Brown 25). I strongly agree with that statement, and I think that Theresa Brown’s experiences provide evidence of how significant truly caring about your patients really is.
A nursing practice issue that relates to Theresa’s experience with Mildred is understaffing. It is important that nurses are able to have these emotional conversations and connections with their patient as they are an advocate and direct contact for patients. In hospitals where nurses are understaffed, they are stretched thin. Having a greater number of patients for each nurse to balance is hard and can make it challenging for nurses to have close connections or be able to support their patients emotionally. It is important to ensure that there are enough nurses in each unit to provide quality care, and for nurses to have the capacity to reach deeper and truly leave the room with the patient in less emotional and physical distress than they were when the nurse entered.
Overall, Theresa Brown’s experiences and advice she shared in her book, Critical Care included many useful learning experiences and lessons. Her interactions with patients have each taught her different lessons, all valuable to move forward with as a nurse. I am glad to have learned through her story and gotten a glimpse of what is to come. I have learned so much from reading about her journey and can’t wait to begin my own!
