Get An A — Or Else
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We all have been been under pressure to perform accurately or suffer dire consequences. Remember the pressure to do well on SAT’s? Or to pass your driver’s test? Or to measure twice, cut once on a big woodworking project?
In all of those situations, we were motivated to perform well so that we got the reward - admission to college, driver’s license, beautiful piece of furniture. We practiced, we asked questions, we practiced some more, we commiserated with others in similar situations, and we were supported by our families and our teachers.
When the big day arrived, we had ample time to prepare, we had our game faces on, our time carefully mapped, and then we went in and did it.
Now, consider healthcare. We take people at their most vulnerable, when they are in pain, when they are injured, when they are dealing with the shock and disbelief of life-altering information about themselves, and then we cram some rote information down their throats, demonstrate how to operate complex equipment, give them complicated sets of instructions - often by many different people, and then, without validating that they have any inkling in how to take care fo themselves, we shove them out the doors of healthcare and off into the unknown of their lives.
What happens when you only get one chance to get it right, and the consequences are life and death?
Get an A - or else
You will miss taking medications that are key to preventing a lethal blot clot, are essential in preventing a stroke, are needed in order to maintain kidney function
You will suffer real physical and psychological stress, making your recovery impossible, and leading to more intense pain, a recurrence of disease or illness, and ultimately leading to your early death.
You will incur more expenses as your health problems are exacerbated.
You will suffer financial harm.
You will suffer unemployment.
Your credit rating will be hurt, and this will cause you to remain unemployable.
Your friends will leave.
You will find yourself increasingly cut off from other people - your friends and your family.
You will continue to suffer.
Eventually, you will die an early death.
How To Get An A
Empower professional nurses to practice unfettered nursing, which includes health teaching, managing symptoms and managing chronic disease. Publicly mandate that nurses prescribe nursing care, and wrest control of nursing practice from insurers, HMO’s, employers, and yes, physicians.
Baccalaureate-educated nurses have been educated to care for patients in their homes, in schools and in the community. They know how to empower patients to learn what they need in order to take care of themselves or their family. They know how to access necessary health and social resources in communities. They are fiscally responsible, and they know how to stretch every dollar to extract optimal worth.
The professional nurse is the sole type health care provider that has as a foundation, the goal of empowering patients to own their health decisions and to manage as independently as possible. Nurses know how to translate medical jargon into plain and straightforward language. They are used to accommodating cultural, spiritual and other needs. They look at patients as functioning in their self-identified roles: parents, workers, family members, members of their communities, and unfettered, they tailor nursing care to fit the patient, and not the patient to fit the nursing care (although in healthcare organizations that dictate nursing practice, this is not so).
Nursing is the key to turning the powerless state of the patient into that of empowered, informed and armed with the knowledge, the coaching, the guidance and the practice to take care of himself or herself, to care for others, and to use health services most economically.
Professional nursing, empowered patients. Good health.