Reflection

Being a Nurse Practitioner isn't all warm and fuzzy at times... You are faced with decisions that affect not only a patient but their family and future. You give bad news and good news. You are a member of a team that sometimes doesn't always see eye to eye.  You must interact with other disciplines that may not understand your perspective.  You must overcome a Health care system that is is dire straights and have to try to give the best care to someone who can't afford being cared for.

In the past few years I often think why did I do this.   I come home exhausted from the constant days interactions with patients, families, staff and other disciplines.  I lose sight sometimes in my exhaustion of why I decided to be a Nurse Practitioner.  I need to stop sometimes and smell the roses.

In the past couple weeks I have tried hard to think what good things have come to me each day.  Each day I always come back to the same thing.  I touched someone's life today.. Some days I may have touched more than one life.

At the end of the day, I sift through the fury of activities and am able to see what impact I have on my patients' lives.  It gets harder everyday when the challenges of the system you work in overpower the goodness you do.

I am really trying hard to grasp this concept.  The challenges of the health care system has made it difficult for providers to remember why they really are there.  It suffocates you sometimes.  It infuriates you with the mound of charting, communication and justification of why we are there to begin with.

So I come back to the question...why did I become a Nurse Practitioner....to be challenged, to provide good care...to continuously learn and be the provider to I would want for myself.  It is hard to keep this perspective especially when patients don't understand the constraints you are under ...and the system you work in may not truly know what you do on a day to day basis....But the person that it really matters is to me....I know...I put the best foot forward...try to keep perspective...and always remember at the end of the day.....why I became a Nurse Practitioner....was it worth it ....Yes...I am a better person today then I was 18 years ago .... I have grown to learn more than I ever dreamed of....I have become a person that I thought I would never been able to be....I have become someone that someday a patient, a family member, a staff member or a peer will say...She was the best Nurse Practitioner I have ever met.