International Nurses Day 2020

I love my job. It sounds like a cliche - isn’t that what the ideal job is, something you love? But I genuinely, honestly, to my very core, love being a nurse. Four years in, and 200 years after the birth of Florence Nightingale, in the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, it’s finally sinking in that I truly have found my calling. It just took me a while to get here.

It was about 10 years ago I first explored the option of leaving my job in the booming WA mining industry to go study. Curtin University (my alma mater) was holding an information session in Geraldton where I lived. I could remotely study, which meant I didn’t have to uproot my family to the city. But the new semester started in a month. The timing was wrong. I gave up on the idea. Well, mostly. A few years later we did uproot the family, but to Albany, the largest city in the region where I grew up and where the majority of my family lived. The call of home was strong. I continued working in the mining industry, working week on/week off and slipping into a depression that seemed endless - a manifestation of my as-yet undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Something had to change. 

I don’t know how it came to my attention that Curtin also offered a remote campus in Albany for its school of nursing. It may have been my mother-in-law Barbara, who lived with us. I owe much to her. She said to me as I was struggling to reconcile quitting a job with a salary of six figures to go and study for three and a half years with no income:

“You’re not quitting your job. You’re buying your life back.”

An amazing woman. I miss her.

She passed away from a pulmonary embolism a year before I graduated, on the ward where I now work. I still have some issues going into that room. I went to the local TAFE campus (where Curtin were based), met with a lovely woman named Catherine who was head of the nursing education department (co-incidentally, she is now the ward Clinical Nurse Manager and my boss) who gave me a pep talk and said that I could do this. So armed with my high school TEE score from 1993 I applied. And was successful. I cried. This would be a recurring theme. I cried after my first week. I cried after 10 weeks when the course workload was its highest and I still could not get my head around referencing. I cried before exams. I cried after exams. After six months of university I was finally diagnosed with Type-2 Bipolar Disorder and was commenced on medication. Three members of my family (my aforementioned mother-in law, my paternal uncle and my maternal grandfather) all passed away while I was studying. My father was flown from Esperance by RFDS to the ICU at Royal Perth Hospital after contracting Q fever and developing bacterial endocarditis. He recovered. 

Practical placements at the hospital commenced … Medical ward, Surgical ward, ED, HDU … the rotation through the acute Mental health ward was especially difficult - it felt a little too close to home after my diagnosis. I commenced working as an Assistant in Nursing during my second year of study, spending more time in the hospital and being around the tight knit nursing community. At some point, the Three Amigos were born. James and I had started studying in the same cohort. Helen had taken time off for the birth of her daughter and recommenced her studies. We became thicker than thieves. Helen now works on the Rehab ward, while James, who graduated with honours on the Vice Chancellor’s list, now runs the Community Care program for a local provider. I don’t see them anywhere near as much as I like, one of the many perils of nurse life. Maybe when 'rona blows over guys we'll get together for a drink or three.

One for each other and all for one, the Three brave Amigos are we

In February of 2017 I started a graduate Registered Nurse position in Albany. Six months on the Medical ward, followed by six months in a remote location. I struggled initially, but eventually found my groove on the ward. The six months went by so fast and I didn’t want to leave. Again, tears. But the next rotation was due. This turned out to be a nightmare. There’s a saying: “Nurses eat their young.” It’s been around for such a long time, and in one form or another bullying within the profession is estimated to affect around 30% of new nurses. Over the next few months I was subjected to some of the worst workplace bullying I have ever experienced. The harder I tried to fix myself to what they wanted me to be the more I made mistakes, which compounded both my plummeting confidence and the sense from senior staff that I wasn’t up to the job. By December, I was ready to quit. I was eventually convinced to stay on by a few close to me. They said they saw potential in me. I hope I’ve repaid the faith. 

Unsure of where I wanted to work post-grad year, I took a punt and applied for a second year role in paediatrics. I made the final three candidates, but lost out. But I was offered a 12 month contract on the Medical ward, which I grabbed with both hands and am still yet to let go of. I’m now permanent staff on the ward. That next 12 months taught me so much about myself, about nursing and about being part of a team. Although I did develop a reputation as the resident shit-magnet, averaging a code-blue (medical emergency) call every six weeks. The ward has now become like family. Not that I haven’t been tempted to leave. ED keeps saying I should come down and play (that’s a hard no, the stress would kill me), and I was offered an interview for a position in the High Dependency Unit before my permanent contract came through. Maybe I'll go do Staff Development. But for right now I’m with my people on Medical. Patients get better and leave, and I know I’ve had a hand in that. Sometimes they don’t, and I can be there to make that journey as easy as it can be for both the patient and the family. At times I feel like a drug dealer handing out restricted medications, and I swear one of the main reasons I’m on this ward is that I’m tall enough to reach the dressings on the top shelf for the smaller staff. Maria and Amaro, I'm looking (down) at you. I love having new student nurses to guide. Occasionally, they’ll even let me coordinate the ward. They’re often the most stressful, yet rewarding, days of all. I work with some amazing people.

 

Hats and icecream. Look it up, it's in the contract.

I think I’m pretty good at this. I haven’t gotten it all nailed down yet. But then again, who does? There’s still a lifetime of learning ahead. A patient once asked me if I was going to go and study to be a doctor now that I was a nurse. Most probably because I'm male, and nursing isn't seen by many as a male role (we made up just under 12% of the nursing workforce in 2017). I answered with “Why would I do that?” This is where I am supposed to be. And who do you think is looking after you for that 23.5hr that the doctor isn’t around? Subtle hint: it’s not the doctor. 

So to all my colleagues across the world, may your patients be alert, orientated and independent, your coffee fresh and your stethoscope where you left it. For those of you on the front line of this pandemic, putting yourselves in harms way again and again with little support from those who should have your back, I wish I could do more for you. All of you stay strong. You're fucking amazing, and my heroes. 

 

Not all heroes wear capes. Well, we usually don't any more...

Happy International Nurses Day 2020.