What Motivates You To Be A Nurse?

A few weeks ago, before the coronapocalypse, I was asked if I’d participate on a discussion panel for a local college ministry. They were planning to do a sermon series on “adulting” and wanted various professionals from the community to answer questions about living out their faith in their particular vocation. Obviously, I was to talk about nursing. And obviously, it’s been cancelled. 

But that hasn’t stopped me from thinking over some of the questions, wondering what I might say to students planning a future in nursing right now. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

What was your original motivation for entering your field of work? 

Well…to be honest, my original motivation for entering nursing was a 1980’s television miniseries about the Civil War. When I watched the leading lady tear the hem of her dress into pieces to bandage a soldier’s injures after battle, I couldn’t help but admire her. Especially since she got to smooch and marry the handsome leading man later on in the show. Nursing started looking very appealing to me.  

From that point on, anytime I saw a nurse in a movie working to the point of exhaustion and getting her hands dirty, I took notice. I loved how the nurse was part of the action. How the nurse was doing something tough. Something important. Something not everyone was willing to do. 

Maybe that’s why in high school, as my parents and I were walking into a college fair and they asked me if I had any idea what I wanted to study or do, the words popped out of my mouth. “I’m thinking about nursing.”

It surprised them. In truth, it surprised me. Growing up, my interests had always gravitated towards English, literature, composition, writing. Never math. Certainly never science. 

Other than assisting my brother in brain surgery on one of my Cabbage Patch dolls, what did I know about nursing? I came from a family of teachers. I had no clue what bedside nursing actually looked like—although I did wager it didn’t involve ripping scrubs apart in order to form bandages, which was a rotten shame.

At the time I only knew I wanted to do something tough. Something important. Something not everyone was willing to do. 

What took me years to discover was that something does not always translate into exciting. 

Let’s face it—right now nursing is exciting. People are thanking us. People are praying for us. We’re doing the tough. The important. For many of us, we’re doing what originally motivated us to enter this field of work in the first place. We want to be at the hospital. We want to take care of patients. We don’t want to get sick and placed on the sidelines. We want to be part of the action. 

So the first question— What was your original motivation for entering your field of work?—wasn’t too hard to answer. The second question took a little more consideration.

How has that motivation changed?

Here’s the part you don’t realize when you first start out as a nurse. It’s not always exciting.

There wasn’t always a Civil War taking place. There won’t always be a global pandemic taking place. You know what there will always be? Patients who need bedpans. And trust me, that’s not very exciting. Many shifts, honestly, aren’t all that exciting. Especially if you’ve been doing it for a while.  

So what keeps a nurse motivated to stay in nursing when the novelty wears off? I had to think about this one for a while. Why do I stay in nursing? Why does anyone stay in nursing—other than for a steady paycheck?

Trying to answer that question made me think of an experience I had a few months ago. I was asked to start an IV on a patient on a different floor. The patient was an older woman. She started bugging me as soon as I entered the room. “Water! Water! Oh, my back. Honey, help me sit up. Water! Can you help me sit up? Water!”

All I wanted to do was get the IV in and leave. But the lady wouldn’t let up.

“Water! My back. Oh honey, just help me sit up. Water!” This continued until I’d repositioned the pillows behind her back two dozen times, gave her thirty-five mouth swabs—“Oh honey, one more”—and explained roughly forty-three times why I wasn’t allowed to give her a drink of water. By the time I was able to convince her to hold her arm still long enough to insert an IV, I never wanted to hear the word water again.

As I tossed the tourniquet in the trash and cleaned up the rest of my supplies, I noticed she had finally stopped talking. When this happens, the last thing a nurse wants to do is make eye contact. Bad things happen when nurses make eye contact. Patients start talking again. And I did not want this woman to start talking again. 

So I kept my gaze on the floor, planning to beeline out of the room once I dropped my gloves in the trash. 

But…I couldn’t do it.  

That quiet little annoying voice buried deep inside me that likes to show up during inconvenient times—like when I’m trying to escape from a patient’s room—rose to the surface and said, “Look at her. She’s a person. At the very least, she deserves to be acknowledged.”  

I sighed. The quiet little annoying voice was right. And though it seemed like the most difficult thing to do on the planet in that moment, I forced my eyes to meet her gaze and said, “Ma’am, take care.”

She opened her mouth— here we go again—and said, “Thank you. You’re very kind.” 

I was? “Oh. Uh…you’re welcome.”  

A few days later I happened to run into the nurse who had asked me to place the IV. She informed me my IV had gone bad in a matter of hours—that’s always nice to hear—but she said it was okay. The patient’s family had made the patient comfort care the following morning.

After hearing that, I wondered if getting called to go up to that patient’s room had been about the IV at all. What if God simply knew this was a woman nearing the end of her life and had wanted her to receive a little kindness before she moved on?

I hope so.

Just like I hope nurses realize, even after all this COVID-19 “excitement” eventually fades away, we are always doing something tough. Something important. Something not everyone is willing to do.

We’re looking people in the eye and showing a little kindness in a world that likes to only look out for itself. Especially when it comes to toilet paper.