“I Need Some Help in Here!”
More than colleagues
I came across a meme today on Facebook that said, “If you save one life — you’re a hero. If you save 100 lives — you’re a nurse.” — Unknown
The truth is far deeper than that. Some nurses might save 100 lives a week. It just depends on what department you work in. What no one says out loud is some of those lives belong to fellow nurses. Because we not only take care of patients, we take care of each other.
When I was an operating room (OR) nurse, I did a lot of different surgeries — from open hearts to liver transplants. I was trained to scrub and circulate cases. But I can tell you that one service I avoided as best I could was orthopedics. Ortho surgeons — like every surgeon on the face of the planet — wanted their own people in their rooms. The nurses and scrubs who knew them inside out, their quirks, their playlists, the way they positioned…well, you get the idea.
Whenever I walked into one of those rooms, even just to give a lunch break — I’d tell the docs, “Yeah, I don’t do a lot of ortho — but you know? If you need to go on (cardio-pulmonary) bypass, I’m your girl.” So at least they knew I wasn’t a (GOD FORBID!!) NEW NURSE! GASP!
And also, that I worked on the heart team, with cardiac surgeons — who were the prima donnas of our OR. Thus, I was accustomed…
