Responsibilities of the Nurse
Responsibilities of the Nurse.—In these pages the writer will endeavor to tell the nurse what she can do when nursing privately, especially among the poor, who have not the proper things to do with; what she can use in place of the things used in the hospital; and what she can do in an emergency when at a distance from medical aid, and when she must use her own knowledge and judgment. It is because the nurse is sometimes called upon to trust to her own knowledge and judgement that the writer desires her fully to understand, and to have an intelligent idea about, the different cases which are most likely to come under her care. The following instructions are not intended for hospital use; indeed, there would be no possible excuse for the nurse to act on her own responsibility in the hospital, as there is always a doctor within calling distance; while in private practice she is left alone with the patient, and is expected by the doctor or the surgeon to know what to observe and to do in emergencies until he arrives.
The professional of nursing is one in which there is no limit to the good that can be done; it is also one in which every woman embracing it must “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith she is called.” “A nurse should have such tact, as well as skill, that she will do what is best for the patients, even against their will, knowing how to manage the weakest and most irritable, and doing all that is necessary for them without their knowing it.” “She must be scrupulously clean and neat in her own person, especially with regard to the arrangement of her hair, which should be smooth and well kept. The office of nurse is too high and too holy for any woman called to it to wish to devote much time to the adornment of her person. Her one object, as regards herself, should be to be clean, simple, neat, modest, sweet-tempered, and to know how to mind her own business”—to keep her health unimpaired by securing sufficient rest, sleep, food, and exercise, without which the best will break down and suffer in health.
A nurse should improve her mind by reading the best books at her command, by going out and visiting her friends, and by attending the theater twice a month; this will keep her in touch with outside affairs, and she will be able to converse intelligently with her patients. Her manner toward her patients and toward all with whom she comes in contact should be kind, pleasant, courteous, and cheerful—repressing all attempts at familiarity. It should be remembered that while we cannot dictate the manner of other people toward us, yet we can to a certain extent have it what we would like it to be; and we can always control our bearing toward them. The nurse should cultivate a contented mind and a cheerful face, avoid affectation and all temptation to air her knowledge—a mistake that many nurses are prone to make—and learn to control her emotions. The patients should be made to feel that they are her first thought, and they will learn to have faith and trust in her.
Unlike physicians, nurses are not called upon to attend charity calls. Very few nurses during their first year of private practice are worth the large fees they ask and receive. This mercenary spirit is steadily increasing, instead of decreasing. It would be well for all nurses to remember the words of the late Dr. Agnew: “It is a great and a good thing to feel that you are not always working for mere money.” This feeling a nurse will not have if she enters into the work for the love of the good that can be done in lessening the weariness of pain and misery with which she comes in contact.
No nurse should take up the work unless she feels that to serve the poor is her vocation. She must try how much she can for each patient, remembering that, so far as the nature of the work admits of it, every poor person should be as well and as tenderly nursed as if he were the highest in the land. The very essence of nursing in the homes of the poor is management, tact, and thinking for the patient. Applications of poultices are not the only duties of a nurse, although they are in themselves of vast importance.
The writer wishes particularly to impress upon the nurse the responsibilities of night duty. It is in the night-tme that a very large majority of patients require the most careful watching and nursing. It requires a very competent nurse to do night duty—one who is gentle, kind, charitable, and patient; a large stock of patience is always necessary because of the large demands that are made upon it during the night.
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