a mind that learns

Second week of nursing school is finished. Have learned about cellular damage and professional boundaries and drug resistant bacteria. Have learned how to take vital signs, do a comprehensive health history and assessment, and dress wounds. Learning is like a workout for my brain. I love all the new info and details and that my professors show all the gooey icky wounds and diseases. I know I'm in the right field. The teaching style of nursing is such that you learn about something, then you practice it in lab, then, if possible, you do it on real people. I like that. While the skills take practice, it's often the psychosocial things I learn that are harder to put into action (and to practice), like interviewing people, taking a health history, and phrasing sensitive questions. I am learning about myself as a nurse; I tend to speak politely but very directly. This is good and necessary in some situations, done with sensitivity, but I must remember to be patient and see the bigger picture. There is a time to speak directly, there is a time to speak softly, and there is a time not to speak at all. I pray for wisdom and a growing ability to perceive/discern as I find my style of being as a nurse.

I starting reading the book about Henrietta Lacks, and I wonder why and how most of our medical developments come through human oppression. I'm thinking about the family of Henrietta Lacks, a poor family with few rights. Her cells were taken without informed consent and for DECADES her family didn't know her cells were being used for research all over the world. I'm also thinking about the concentration camps of WW2, and how much research and development was accomplished -- HUGE leaps and bounds in depth of understanding of the human body, its capabilities, and its diseases, the developments of cures and effective treatments -- all through the cruel and inhumane of Jews and others in concentrations camps. I am thinking too about the huge pharmaceutical companies that control drug production and prices, all for profit and usually in dishonest ways.

So many medical benefits are at the expense of our humanity.

Deep sigh.

I want to play a role adding humanity back into health.

//LB//