Hospital posting-- last journal

Last weekend, I was home straightening my desk. I unintentionally spotted Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson, a book I bought when I was in Canada. I flipped through the book. I realized that I forgot all the things I have learnt from the book. As I opened the first page of my “Goals Proposal” notebook—stop complaining. And I have completely forgotten about it and done the opposite way. I tended to look for the cracks and flaw of life or the people around me. I think I have been sweating a lot with the small stuff recently. So, for this last journal, I decided to talk good.

This week is our last week’s posting in Sg. Buloh Hospital. Good or bad, I know I’ll miss every moment of it: I’ll miss the smiles on patients’ faces every time they see me; I’ll miss the contentment I get every time I learn something from the CI or staff nurses; I’ll miss the satisfaction I get every time I complete a mission, like changing patients’ clothes or bathing them; I’ll especially miss the relationships we have built up among the group members. Changing pampers for patients who have just passed motion is no fun, but doing it with another group member has made this job better.
Yes, we never stop giggling and—gagging—every time when we do the changing of pampers.
I’ll even miss the yummy waffles from the shop at the lobby.

My point of view about the nurses has slightly switched. I can see the possibly reason of the bad attitudes among the nurses. Think about it, I’m sure everybody loves helping and doing some charity works for people in need sometimes. A lot of student nurses say they loving nursing because they like helping people. However, the days of posting in the hospitals are temporary, and they have no long-term responsibilities about it. Posting is basically just like doing voluntary works. When this virtue is changed from voluntary to become an obligation, the meaning is altered along with it. Willingness and passion are no longer coming out from their hearts, but stress, boredom, apathy, and maybe displeasure. Unless you are very firm with your purpose, you will be like what most of the people are years after: lost of their initial aims and visions in their jobs. In order to prevent myself from turning someone that I really don’t want to be, I know I have to find an ultimate meaning from this job and stick with it. I guess I have to give my good friend in Canada a ring and ask her to give me a lesson about how could she still love her job as a nurse 5 years after. If Mother Teresa is still alive, maybe I should write her a letter.

Since our CI Ms Poh Poh did an evaluation about everyone of us, I think I should evaluate her performance as well. She is a very strict CI. There’s no doubt about the experiences and knowledge she acquired after so many years of nursing, and I admire that. I can see a lot of similarities between her and myself. We both live our lives with strong principles. We both are sometimes being very “difficult” to other people. We both sometimes get angry without really looking into the truth. However the differences are, I’m more open-minded, that I know there’s more than one way—my way—of doing things. And I’m more “new fashioned”, that I know for some situation, I cannot always use my past experience to deal with the new ones. I need to keep updating myself.
My conclusion about her: I hope this will be THE ONLY time she becomes my CI.

Lastly, what I have learnt during these 5 weeks (or not exactly) are invaluable. Not only did I learn a lot of medical terms, machines, medications, and diseases, I also learnt how to communicate with co-workers and patients, and the most important: how to be a nurse. I have developed my compassion. I learnt to put myself in other people’s shoes, and hence to open my heart and greatly enhance my sense of gratitude. The grandma’s dead is still a great shock to me. I realize that I have spent too much time regretting the inevitable, worrying about a variety of things—all at once. I allow past problems and future concerns to dominate my present moments, all that has made me often ended up anxious, frustrated, depressed, and hopeless. In short, I think I miss out on life!
For this, I think I need a starbucks’ latte to appreciate and enjoy my present moment a bit.