As I was writing ‘Why I am a Nurse,’ I kept thinking about my sister Sarah who is also an RN.

While working as a nurse practitioner I saw patients all over the very large hospital Sarah and I work at. During my time with the ortho-trauma team, she worked in the SICU and, at times, would be assigned to my patients.

Watching her work was, quite simply, amazing. Her quiet confidence and purposeful movements put families at ease. Sarah’s biting wit and no nonsense attitude have earned her the respect of peers, residents and attendings alike.

We have become a default support system for each other. Ego knows no bounds as we are able to call and brag about our roll in saving a patient, or cry when we need an emotional outlet for our grief. The two of us share the best and worst of being nurses with each other.

One of my favorite stories she told me was about a patient in which routine cardiac surgery became anything but, as his body systems began shutting down one by one. It started with fluid retention and progressed to fluid overload as his kidneys stopped functioning. The team tried everything and the desperate decision was made to give him dialysis, in a last ditch effort to stop this perplexing cycle which was quickly approaching devastating.

My sister entered his care at the point when things were reaching their most critical. Her day was to be one in which she is routinely at her best, caring for someone the new nurses were scared to touch.

After getting change of shift report from an exhausted colleague, she began at the beginning and performed a patient assessment. Prior to hanging more medications, calling for dialysis equipment or analyzing pages of lab results, she then took a few moments to do something simple. Sarah almost immediately changed the course of her patient’s care.

She flushed his foley catheter.

My sister did what her patient needed the most: she thought like a nurse.

When I think about the poor perception of the nursing profession from those on the outside and the negative stereotypes associated with the word ‘nurse,’ I cringe.

The bedpan changer. The physician handmaiden. The person who follows orders.

One of my missions, as I proudly represent nursing, is to be, say and do things to change how outsiders, and insiders to the medical world look at nurses. This encompasses how talk about being a nurse both inside and outside the hospital.

Probably the most important thing I try to impress on people is the fact that the NURSE is the eyes, ears and soul of the team. We are the gate keepers with an aura of “nursing intuition” that touches each patient.

This intuition has saved countless patients. I till tell the story about an orthopaedic, med-surg nurse who has been on the job for 20+ years. I was a newbie NP in an unfamiliar area. It took quite some time for her to feel me out, deciding if she should trust me or not. What she didn’t know was that I was watching her as well. Learning from her.

One morning she grabbed me by the arm and in her very Pattie voice looked at me over her glasses and said, “Emily, there is just something not right about this patient. They are going to code.” I walked into the room to a slightly restless, but awake, coherent patient. I went with her intuition.

The patient was transferred to the ICU via CT for a pulmonary embolism within the next hour and a half.

This post over at Overactive Imagination brought that day back in living color. Below are two parts of the post, but please read it in its entirety.

Yes, I am bragging.:
I called a stroke today. I walked into a patients room to do routine 7a vitals and something just seemed “off” about him although he was sitting up in the chair talking to me . . .

. . . I called the charge nurse and had her alert the stroke team. They were there in minutes and took him for a stat CT and then to the unit (CCU-Critical Care Unit) . . .

Many days are routine. I do my job for the small moments. A smile and a thank you. An impromptu hug from a grateful family member. However, it is seconds like calling a stroke which set the profession of nursing apart from anything else.