Pre-COVID-19 Community Health Nursing

As a registered nurse of only three years, I am often referred to by my peers as a “baby” nurse. However, in those short three years of practice I have learned and continue to learn many things whether medical, personal, or humanitarian. My personal nursing experience has been in surgical care services. The vast majority of the patients I have cared for are those undergoing elective procedures. They have chosen to have joint arthroplasty or some other type of procedure.

I have also had the great fortune to care for those who have been diagnosed with terminal illnesses such as cancer and leukemia. Many times I see these patients in the infancy of their disease process, but I also see them on a continue basis during treatments such as blood or platelet transfusions. The difficulties faced by patient s such as these are varied and bring with each a different set of needs to be assessed and addressed. You become not just a nurse but a caregiver, advocate, therapist, and more often than not a friend.

It is when working with these patients that the dynamics of quality versus quantity of life