Inspired by a #RNChat on Twitter, I coined the term Meaningful Nurse to describe a possible theme for a planned RNCamp event. And now I ponder that expression "Meaningful Nurse". What does it mean to be a Meaningful Nurse, what roles do we perform that have meaning and meet appropriate definitions of being an nurse with a Meaningful Use.
I will look for nurses stories of how their expertise and experience are often not used in meaningful ways to better patient outcomes and ask for their suggestions on how they could be better utilized. Then we will explore how we might better define our roles and fully exemplify a Meaningful Nurse.
Who wants to go first?
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This is.a great idea. "Meaningful Nurse" to me is seeing my patient's and families go from being afraid of death to embracing the end with quality and dignity. Hearing a loved one say "It's okay you can let go when you are ready" let's me know I did my job in educAting and preparing this family for death. I had o e patient that had stomach cancer. In the beginning she and her family insisted on TPN. Each week as I saw the patient, I would see her having fluid overload, increased ascites and intractable vomiting. Nothing was helping. Then one week her PICC line clogged when I tried to draw her labs. We had to send her to the hospital to allow the interventional radiology nurses try to declot her line. This took such a toll on her. Her niece, who did all of her TPN and line care, informed me two days later that the PICC was getting sluggish. I spoke with the patient's son about our options (24 hours in hospital to declot, put in new PICC, or stop everything and let mom die which signs showed her body was trying to do). Son agreed, daughter didn't. So we had a family meeting for the patient to tell her family what she wanted. The meeting was bittersweet. After the patient heard her options, she choose to stop all treatments. Her daughter tried to talk her out of it. My patient looked at her and said " Jill [name changed] I'm ready to go. You have to let me go, it's time. I'm ready to be with your dad". Everyone in the room was in tears including me. The daughter agreed. For the next week I worked with the family preparing them for the death. Eight days after stopping the TPN, my patient died. Report from the nurse who pronounced said that the family was at her bedside singing hymns and reminiscing of the good times they had with mom,aunt,sister. For me as a hospice nurse that is just a small portion of what it means for me to be a "Meaningful Nurse".
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