As I was waiting in line at the grocery store last year, the cover of the November 2011 edition of Reader’s Digest caught my eye. Did you see it? The RD has been running this column “X number of secrets your ____ (fill in the blank with some profession) won’t tell you” for the last few months. The column has been quite enlightening, I must say. So, I picked up that issue and read the article “50 Secrets Nurses Won’t Tell You.” Nothing new to me popped out—the points mentioned were major things that I’ve heard multiple times over the years within the nursing profession.

But what caught my eye was a recurring theme…that docs have their place and their value, but nurses make the difference. Again, nothing new, right? All nurses know this! Then it hit me. If we make the difference, what kind of responsibility does that place on our shoulders?  This realization of massive responsibility is not necessarily new to me and probably will not be to you, but perhaps I felt it again in a deeper way.

I think the responsibility hit me for the first time while I was working NICU in Arkansas.  At that time, NICU was a new specialty for me, and I fell in love with it. My co-workers, including the docs and NPs, were INCREDIBLE. [Read more...]