In Knowing(Sylvia Skrmetta) Everyday was different; sometimes boring, sometimes tragic and sad, always busy… too busy, and then there were very few days where I left the hospital smiling. Smiling because someone had said what a great job I had done; someone had seen how much of myself I had put into their care; someone had left better, healthier, and in less pain than when they had arrived.

Unfortunately, getting those positive responses were rare, not because their nurse hadn’t done a first-rate job, but because the food was horrible, or pain meds were given as ordered and not the way the patient wanted, or the call light wasn’t answered immediately. No explanation about the chaos happening outside their room, whether it was a shortage of staff, a patient vomiting, fainting, dying…none of that mattered to the call light that wasn’t answered promptly.

Doctors! Some are so kind and considerate and grateful to have a good nurse to care for their patients and therefore made taking orders from him or her a privilege. And then there were the doctors who played “God!” They treated nurses no better than second-rate citizens, peons, red-headed stepchildren, or slaves. How I dreaded having their patients.

Let’s not forget the paperwork, or at least during my time at the hospital everything was written by hand. Later all notes and orders were entered into a computer. Regardless, it seemed to me after a few years, that the system was more about what was written and not so much about patient care. You see, if it wasn’t written or entered into the computer, it was considered not done! So somewhere in between changing bandages, giving out medicines, answering call lights, baths, and caring for the extremes in patient care from simple medical problems to critical care, you had to stop and try to remember everything you did and write it in the patients’ charts, whether hand-written or computerized.

Sometimes I absolutely hated some patients, their arrogance and rudeness. I hated to have to enter into their room to hear their constant complaints, and still try to keep a smile on my face.

And if it wasn’t the patient complaining, it was the family. Even just one family member who thought they knew what was best for the patient, or thought they knew more than the doctor, could make for a miserable experience in the care of that particular patient.

Exhaustion! The best word in the dictionary to describe the state of most nurses at the end of their shift. It was rare to be able to leave it all behind; to go home to your next job — your family. I would peel off my uniform or scrubs and shoes at my back door, fill my tub with steaming hot water, and submerge myself with only my nose above the waterline in an attempt to cleanse my germ exposed skin and drown out the day.

I write this narrative not to point out the obvious in the career of any nurse, particularly the ones that work in hospitals, but rather to explain my feelings about something I learned along the way in my twenty-five years as a floor nurse.

I cared for hundreds of patients. Some were short-term care; surgery, recovery and sent home. Others stayed for undetermined amounts of time with medical problems that could never be completely healed. Rarely did I have time to sit and talk with a patient about their lives and family; what they did for a living, their accomplishments, their failures, their hopes and dreams. It really wasn’t my place to ask such questions, and perhaps, in most cases it was for the best not to become attached to patients who would eventually leave to go home or to the morgue.

I often regretted this unfamiliarity with some of my patients. Oh, I knew their medical problems inside and out, but did I really know the person? It is a sad state of affairs when a patient is referred to as “the gunshot wound in 516” or “the gallbladder in 504!” But many times, that was the case.

It was while I was reading the obituaries in the newspaper one day, that I realized how short-sighted I was. A patient who had been in and out of the hospital many times, and who I had cared for, had died. He was ninety-two at the time of his death. I knew him as well as any of the other staff knew him; a sweet, gentle man, appreciative of the care we gave him. He never complained, often times said “thank you,” and had only one wish; he wanted to die in his own bed; a wish he had seemingly been granted.

As I read his obituary, tears streamed down my face. I had no idea this man had been a decorated pilot and hero in WWII, had served as a Colonel in the Korean conflict and in the Vietnam war, or that he had five children of his own and had adopted and raised five others. He had outlived almost all of his children and his wife of sixty-five years. He had devoted his life to charitable causes, and was a member of many important organizations.

I wished I had asked him about his life. I wondered how many other patients I had cared for had similar histories. And I realized one important thing; all my patients…every single one of them had lives outside the hospital, outside their illness. I knew I couldn’t know all of them well, but I would try to see beyond that person lying in the hospital bed, beyond the illness that brought them to my care, and perhaps, if I got lucky, someone would trust me enough to tell me more about their lives or their past. I knew that in knowing more about the person I was caring for it would help me to help them. Sometimes just listening can be more therapeutic than any pill for a patient, and more meaningful an experience for me. I decided to slow down as much as I could to give my patients a chance to know me and most importantly, for me to know them.

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