This week was my first week at the Methodist Hospital. I was assigned to the geriatric floor. I was unsure of what to expect from this facility. However, I had worked with geriatric patients before who had mental disorders in my High School CNA course, and also worked with them during our nursing home clinical rotation at Remarkable. Thus, I was not too concerned with working with this population and had a good idea of what their developmental stage/ age may entail. I have always liked working with this population, because I know this population is vulnerable and often neglected. I like being the type of student nurse who will ensure that this population is provided with the type of care and respect they deserve. Today I was a client advocate when I advocated for a patient’s needs who was complaining of not being able to urinate and feeling lots of pressure near his bladder. The patient was a fall risk patient who was asking to go to the restroom every 10 minutes, but was unable to release any significant amount of urine. I had notified the nurse of the patient’s initial complaints, but she would kind of just brush my concern off as if it wasn’t anything to worry about. I had heard before that the nurses at this facility are not very welcoming to nursing students, so I thought that perhaps she was just pretending to ignore my comments about the patient because of not wanting nursing students around. However, as the patient’s comments continued, and I continued to express the patient’s concerns to the nurse, I quickly realized that this nurse was just failing to provide adequate patient care.
Seeing this nurse neglecting the patient’s concerns as she just sat in the nurses’ station all day made me feel frustrated. It’s frustrating to see a nurse who is ultimately responsible for listening and advocating for a patient’s needs neglecting their concerns. At the time, I was thinking that perhaps she was just occupied and that she’d address this patient’s needs as soon as possible. However, I quickly noticed that she was just in fact brushing off his concerns. I handled my reaction to the situation by simply taking this nurses neglect as a way to show me what I should not do as a future RN. Instead of sitting there with my arms crossed, I decided to advocate for the patient’s needs and asked the nurse if she would want for my clinical partner and I to perform a bladder scan and advocated for his concern and possible need of a Foley Catheter. Once the bladder scan was performed, the nurse informed the Nurse Practitioner (NP) about the problem, the NP educated the patient on the Foley and obtained his consent, and the NP allowed for us to place his Foley. Although getting urine output out of this Foley was not easy, it was nice to hear from the patient that it did relieve some of the pressure he was feeling. Hearing that the patient was feeling less discomfort from a task that was performed by us and advocated by us made me feel good about the patient-centered care I provided that day. I definitely learned through this experience, that although some nurses may not follow through with listening to the patient’s needs or advocating for the patient that, that doesn’t mean one has to do the same. In a way, this experience highlighted the assumptions/ biases I’ve heard before that some mental health nurses fail to provide patient centered care and neglect patients. Throughout the nursing program, I have learned that this population is quite vulnerable and is often neglected. To see this neglect first hand was quite eye opening and really helped me see the type of nurse I don’t want to be.
Although this experience with the nurses was not a great experience, due to their rudeness towards us and the initial neglect of the patient, I did enjoy this experience because it taught me a lot and allowed me to interact and care for mental health patients. In the San Marcos Treatment Center, patient interaction was very limited, so it was refreshing to be able to actually interact for and care for the patients more within this facility. This event has definitely taught me that no matter what condition, facility, or age the patient may be that all patients deserve to be treated fairly, advocated for, and respected. I will keep in mind what I learned as a reminder of the type of nurse I don’t ever want to become- someone who neglects patient’s and is rude to student nurses.
I will use the knowledge gained through this experience in the future to remind me of the type of nurse I should avoid being to patients and students. If I ever have nursing students following me around or observing my role as a nurse, I hope to show them how a true nurse advocate should be and treat them with respect. When a circumstance like this occurs again, I will remember to continue to try advocating for the patient and to inform my instructor of the situation. This experience will definitely alter my future career as a future nurse by reminding me of the nurse I truly want to be- someone who is helpful and respectful to both patients and nursing students.