Healthcare Career Articles
Being an LVN nurse is so much more!
Here they are: the graduating LVN class of 2010¦ What will their practice bring to them and their families, to their patients and coworkers? We have taught and trained these future licensed vocational nurses on the science of medicine and practices of a healthcare professional. We have raised them to be sensitive to others' needs and to be a caring and compassionate persons. We have coached them to be good and understanding listeners, and to be effective teachers. Yes, teachers. We don't normally think of healthcare professionals as educators, but they are. Being able to instruct and train patients and their families on how to adjust their lives to their new health conditions is a big part of being a nurse in modern days. An LVN nurse must be able to provide teaching to a newly diagnosed diabetic on self-injections with insulin and following a strict schedule of diet and medications. An LVN nurse must be able to educate a dialysis patient on carefully following the appropriate diet and attending procedures. An LVN nurse must be able to train a care giver or a family member of a post-stroke geriatric patient on giving them at-home tube feeding and taking care of that gastrostomy. Nurses are educators too. Education is a part of the compassionate nature of this profession. However, being able to treat the sick and the helpless as more than a medical chart, but rather as a special person, who has loved ones, history of the past, and plans for the future, that is what makes a truly great LVN nurse. Being a nurse is so much more than administering injections on time, passing out meal trays, and giving nursing reports. A great nurse will give a hug to a mother of a dying child to give her emotional and spiritual support, when she needs it the most. A great nurse will take a moment to hear the story of an elderly man about his beloved wife, who passed away last year, whom he misses so much. A great nurse will embrace a sick child, who misses his mother, while at the pediatric care unit of a Children's Hospital. Yes, being a nurse is so much more. This is why these students chose and LVN program as their plan for their own future, taking charge of their life, and helping the lives of others. So, here they are: the graduating LVN class of 2010. They may not know it yet, but they are so much more to those who will need them. To listen with compassion, to sympathize with their suffering, to hold their hand during times of physical pain and emotional agony, to those patients, these nurses are teachers, mothers, friends, heroes¦