Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Caring for Patients: Having Favorites

One of the values of the professional nursing practice is social justice: meaning each patient should be treated like everyone else, irregardless of race, religion, culture, or beliefs. Nursing ethics suggests that nurses should embrace an egalitarian attitude and promote fairness where the people needing more care should be prioritized. 

I believe that most nurses would be guilty like me for having favorite patients who I would rather spend most of my time caring for them. It's only natural that people will stick around with other people who are positive, friendly, and have a sense of humor. I know that care should be given more to someone who needs it the most, but if you're presented with a person that is rude and aggressive as compared to a nice and compliant patient, you would choose the latter as well and focus more of your time on meeting the nice patient's needs, even if the rude patient required more assistance. Some would say this is wrong but we have to all remember that respect is mutual: it is a two-way process. It is in our nature to have preferences. In my opinion, it would only be unethical if you don't meet the needs of your other patients while spending most of your time with your favorite patient.
On the other hand, nurses should always advocate for their patients, even if the patients are rude, and believe that their disease is what's causing their behavior. Being abusive is a completely different story, nurses shouldn't place themselves in a position where patients could verbally and physically abuse them. Favoritism may lead to negative results as well, such as being biased and neglecting other patients and having a clouded decision making skill since all you are focused on is what you believe is right for the patient. This is why nurses shouldn't take care of family members at work.


Again I personally believe that there is nothing wrong with having favorite patients but you have to maintain a professional patient-nurse relationship with that patient and you should meet the needs of other patients as well.




Sunday, October 31, 2010

Intimacy vs Isolation

To those who are aware of Erik Erikson's 8 Stages of Psychosocial Development, I am at the 6th stage right now, which is, as you have read above, Intimacy vs Isolation.

Wow I didn't really expect this but I'm actually feeling lonely and I want to find my other half (I'm being an emo kid, I hate it).

A love-interest that I had before once asked me, "Why are you afraid to say yes to love?".   If I didn't totally focus on my studies when I was back in the Philippines I would have had experienced the joys of being young and in love. Now I'm shriveling up by the second feeling so unaccomplished in the field of intimate relationships.

Well I did have relationships in the past and I just took them for granted. In high school, I was blessed that the girl I liked had the same feelings for me. It was a perfect scene when we confessed our feelings for each other, it was raining and we were cooped up in this shed. The relationship would have blossomed except that during high school I was an obnoxious douche bag. I totally claim responsibility for the relationship not working out. I was selfish and I don't know what happened, but it just ended and I didn't fight for her.

During university, I was curious and I wanted to experiment to find out what this love is. Sadly, I had to put it to an end because of school and unwritten social norms... and now I yearn for what I've had. Sure the most recent relationship I had wasn't perfect but I had something... I had someone who loved me but I guess I didn't reciprocate the feelings because I guess there was none to begin with. I only entered into the relationship as a social experiment, I wanted to find out why everyone in college is so obsessed about relationships. I know that what I did was wrong and that I'm suffering the bad karma right now of being single and miserable (sort of, being single does have it's pros).

As I look back, a lot of people actually offered their hearts to me but I guess I figured I was too important and too busy to entertain love in my life. I'm too smart for my own good, calculating the pros and cons if I am going to be in a relationship with someone...

I have learned to take the leap and just go for it. I am not afraid to say yes to love right now. I swear, I will accept the next person who will declare love for me. With out hesitations I will say yes because I really feel that time is running out for me.

I know that I may sound pathetic right now and that I would probably hate myself for writing this years from now but these are my honest feelings right now. Another cold December approaches and I still don't have anyone to call my own, how sad.

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Photo credits to life123.com

Friday, October 22, 2010

Why Can't I Wake Up?!

These past few days I have been having a hard time getting out of bed. I do wake up when my alarm goes off but somehow I end up going back to bed and going back to sleep. Today I've actually missed my first class in the morning and this prompted me to reflect and find a solution to this destructive behavior that I am exhibiting.


I have observed a pattern in my behavior and it is quite disturbing but it is quite easy to fix. I'm pretty sure that other people also exhibit the same signs and symptoms of the very disease of "Lazyness Hagukis" (failure to wake up despite several auditory and tactile stmulus). Here are my observations and my recommendations to change the behavior:

  1. I observed that I don't wake up if the sun isn't up - I refuse to wake up whenever it is still dark outside. This is especially worst during winter when the sun doesn't rise until 8 am in the morning so I always end up being late. SOLUTION: Turn on all the lights in the room. This will fool your biological clock to think that it is already the middle of the day.
  2. Having the alarm clock ring consecutively to gradually wake me up... NEVER WORKS! I end up just turning off the alarm clock every time it rings. SOLUTION: I will set three different alarm clocks to ring at the same time. I will set one alarm clock away from the bed so that I have to stand up to turn it off. It's either wake up or be late. I will never go back to bed to catch the "5-more-minutes-of-sleep". I need to STICK TO THE SCHEDULE.
  3. I tend to procrastinate studying because I'll just wake up earlier to study. I noticed that whenever I tell myself that I'll wake up earlier to do something, I actually end up sleeping in more. Whenever I do wake up and I find that it's too late to do any studying, I just go back to sleep and the cycle of sleeping until I miss the bus continues. SOLUTION: Do everything before sleeping. DO NOT sleep and then wake up to study or do anything else. I have noticed that I actually find it harder to sleep when I have to wake up later and I usually don't get enough sleep so I end up being tired when I force myself to study.
  4. I usually sleep in more because I can drive to school whenever I miss my bus. I usually wake up earlier because I need to catch my bus but since I found free parking at school I ended up driving to school more often than usual. SOLUTION: Do not drive to school! I usually end up taking the bus very early in the morning so I get to do more studying at school. In the end I'll be more productive plus I'll save more money on gas.
I will follow the recommendations that I have presented and hopefully I get to wake up earlier, be more productive (get more studying done), be more punctual, and save more money!

****
Photo Credits to rd.com

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Grenade - Bruno Mars Cover



I don't know what possessed me to make a cover of Bruno Mars' Grenade. I think I was inspired by Jason Chen and Joseph Vincent's cover of it. I won't post their videos here because of conflict of interest (shameless self-plug LOL!).

Sunday, October 3, 2010

The Caring Moment

The Caring Moment
by Dr. Jean Watson

Often we hear about burnout, but increasingly we learn that the burnout is not because we care too much. It’s because we wall ourselves off and close off our heart, and close off our very source of love, and the human connectedness that gives us the life-generating force for that work.

Why are we in this field, when it often seems that we are just there to fix the body, to give physical diagnoses and treatment?

But what if I and you and we realized that healing is much more than that, and that much more of what healing is about comes down to us through the ages, from our ancestors and the wisdom traditions that call us into this work, and that’s about honoring our very presence, our very being, our connectedness with another person in a given moment.

And it is that caring moment that actually can be a critical turning point in my life, in your life, and in another person’s life, as we touch another person’s humanity?

What if we revisited the very foundation of our work, and began to honor the deep rich beauty of our humanity, that must again flourish, because this is what healing is about?

And what if we realized that we are teachers for each other, that this is sacred work, and it’s sacred because we’re working with the life force of another person as well as ourselves on this shared journey?

What if we began to pause and to realize that maybe this one moment with this one person, is the very reason we’re here on earth at this time?

Any health practitioner today is struggling to return to the very human depths of our work, and we know that when we’re connecting with another person in this deep way, even if it's for a brief a moment in time, that we have much more purpose in our life and in our work, and we know that when that’s missing there’s an empty void, and we’re dispirited.

And we also know the same thing happens with patients. When we hold them in their wholeness, we’re holding their healing for them, and we are helping to sustain them when they are most vulnerable. And as we sustain another person, we’re also sustaining ourselves.

Healing is a spiritual practice. When we touch another person physically, we’re touching more than just their body. We’re touching their mind, we’re touching their heart, we’re touching their very soul.

And when we look into the face of another person, we look into the infinity and the mystery of the human soul, and when we look into the mystery and the infinity of the human soul, it mirrors the infinity and the mystery back into our soul, and that’s what connects us with this infinite field of universal love, that we draw upon in our caring and healing practices.

So I offer this as a blessing for you in your work in the world, and in your heart, as you open to the love that you have to give and to the purpose of your calling into this noble and ancient profession.