Enigma of Nursing Life: Must Be Solved and Directed To The Conventional Path

During my second year of nursing school, our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. "Absolutely," the professor said. "In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello." I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy. ~Joann C. Jones

Between a nursing student and a nurse, what would make a difference among the two? Maybe, of course, in the common point of view, the variation can be seen in terms of their state wherein the one is a person who’s undergoing education for the sake of being a nurse in the near future while the other is someone who engaged already with the proper upbringing in order to be skilled as well as trained in the healthcare of the sick and at present is applying what he learned as a nursing student. But looking at the inmost sense of what is a nursing student and of what is a nurse, we can say that the two people concerned can be modified interchangeably. It means that the endpoint and the commencing point of the labors of a nursing student and a nurse respectively are achieved because of the bountiful effects of the lives and experiences acquired as a nursing student and as a nurse. When it comes to the endpoint of a nursing student that’s when he already finished for instance the necessary education, the goal of becoming a nurse is at hand or can now be reached. On the other hand, the commencing point of a nurse, someone who is a fresh graduate from the nursing course can be attributed with the aid of the skills, knowledge and trainings inherited from his life as a student who’s a soon-to-be nurse. With the said testimonials, one can assure the fact that the terms “nursing student” and “nurse” are interconnected yet interchangeable in the broad sense.
As to be considered as a versatile nursing student moreover a versatile nurse someday, several principles are to be abided. These principles will help someone especially a person desiring to be a nurse somehow. They will ignite the needed passion to face all the odds that will be encountered as one journey to the road of becoming a zealous nurse. The first principle is that of providing a vision. If you want to be a well-rounded nurse at sometime in the future, you should create a vision of studying well and good enough to reap the prerequisite of the nursing course so that you can move on to the next principle, to achieve the goal of finishing your course with zeal, honor and confidence to be called as a well-to-do nurse as you begin a duty of service to your fellowmen in order for you to consequently apply the most promising and significant principle, the notion of losing yourself in the service of others specifically of the sick and those who are in need of thy care. With this tertiary principle, you can really say that a nurse is a clever one because his heart is amongst of his concerns for the life of humanity, for its caring and healing. In addition, obeying such principle as a nurse will produce great sentiments in his part and in the part of his patients pursuing the adage by an anonymous, “As a nurse, you will touch a life or a life will touch yours.” Following these three-fold principles will assure the desire of someone who is eager to become a versatile nurse to the extent of accomplishment and to the point of considering one as reliable and worthy enough to be a nurse especially when you put one’s self for the namesake and the innermost sake of the so-called “service”.
Beneath the principles stated in the preceding paragraph, one thing should be present. It must be the foremost strenuous wall that will nurture the said principles. Without its presence, these principles cannot be put in the surface of reality and in one way or another, the aim of becoming a nurse will not be attained. The factor that is referred to which is oftentimes very in demand in order to achieve the success of obtaining the title “nurse” is none other than “sacrifice”. This word is utmost in terms of acquiring wellness and satisfaction in all of our endeavors. In the case of nursing students vitalizing the intimate definition of sacrifice is a must. You should learn to sacrifice things for the welfare of your aspiration to be nurses. Also, you should know how to motivate yourselves about the inherent reasons and consequences as well of having a practice in sacrificing different components of your lives even at least for a meantime for the regards of your objective of becoming nurses. Based on established experiences, sacrifice as a nursing student can be observed as exerting intellectual and physical dexterities more than enough to excel in one’s academic performance e.g. doing paper works, coming to school and going home undertaking a far away distance, sleeping very late at night just to spend a quality time to review for quizzes and examinations, torturing at times one’s mentality or challenging mental limitation just to surpass the onset of getting above average grades especially in the segment of the scholars who’re enthusiastic to maintain or as much as possible pass beyond their intellectual greatness. On the other side, sacrifice can be viewed as spending your time and your effort to your study not more than enough but just enough to pass in school’s subjects. This perception is from the average group. Sacrifice can still be noticed not only in the context of the experiences in academic stability but also in personal experiences in compliance to the plea of his determination to be a nurse. It means that sacrifice resembles conforming to one’s desire to be a vivid nurse wherein one sacrifices meantime the time for his loved ones in order to comply with his purpose to finish education and eventually become a nurse like someone whose family is in the province while he’s away from them focusing and working out to his study.
An assertion that sacrifice is superb was uttered by a nursing student from I-G: “Ang sakripisyo ay sadyang napakahalaga sa pagtamo ng ating mithiin sa buhay. Sa parte nating mga mag-aaral dito sa FEU-NRMF, ito ang magbibigay daan upang unti-unti nating mabuksan ang pintuan patungo sa antas na kung saan abot-kamay na natin an gating pangarap at iyon ay maging mga nars na dahil sinubok ng panahon at pinigaan ng mga sakripisyo ay maituturing na karapat-dapat para sa titulong “Mga Huwarang Nars ng Modernong Panahon”. Sa bawat sakripisyo na binibigay natin, tayo’y nabibigyan naman ng higit na pag-asa at posibilidad na makuha ang ating mga minimithi sa buhay.”

To collate things up, we can logically say that if you aim to become a nurse in the mere future, you should first undergo to a life of a debonair student who has the innate vision to reach a desire, a goal and an aspiration. Within the ground of the life of a nursing student, one must adequately offer sacrifices wherein as he tend to sacrifice his time, effort, etc., certain sacrifices are also being rendered to him by his fate/destiny and these are sacrificing its time, effort etc. for the betterment and fulfillment of what he want to have in his life specifically the attainment of being identified as a nurse. Aside from sacrifices, various principles are to be obeyed so one can have an assurance of being a proper nursing student subsequently of being a one of a kind nurse. One wellspring among these principles should be considered as to be of vital importance and that is losing yourself in the service of others. Acquiring in your core a love for serving others will help you to be an effective and effective nurse as well as influential in a way to other nurses. As to be a service-centered nurse someday, you must learn to signify all the individuals you will meet as you venture your life of service to those who are in need most of your attention and care. If you’ll learn this manner, you can assess the long term period of your nursing profession and you can undoubtedly pursue the fact that serving people will give you a great reward not only in this world but also in the kingdom of God because you’re working in accordance to God’s image as the saying goes by: “God takes many forms and one is in the spirit of a nurse” wherein the people you served and will be serving will look upon you as God in human form who is fulfilling the legacy of healing the sick physically and as much as possible spiritually now and beyond.

Values of Service

Camiling Catholic School is a domain of distinct organs whose central purpose why they’re built is to render the so-called “service”. The organs I’m referring to are: Knights of the Altar/Dames of the Altar, Liturgical Committee, Choir, and the last but not the least, the only peculiar service-centered organization, the Citizen Advancement Training Organization. For the different religious and non-religious organizations of the school, exceptional viewpoints about the value of service can be known and learned from them.

It is easy to think of service as “doing good” – addressing needs, improving lives, leaving the school a better place than we found it. But service is about more than just outer results. It’s about inner transformation. Each time we tell our self-centeredness to roll over and put our inner generosity in the driver’s seat something inside us shifts. Service is about awareness of that shift as much as it’s about action. It grows us in our understanding of ourselves and the interconnectedness of our world. Every small act of selfless service moves us towards greater mindfulness and compassion. That is, what should be the value of service is. But as human who often make a difference tend to have distinctive perspectives on the value of service. Like in our school, the individuals who belong to the different service-centered groups have their own insights about service value whether with regards to the church or community depending on their service field.

According to the head of LITCOM and Choir(2006-2007), service is acting what’s vested to you. She claimed it with this statement: “Ang value of service ay ang pagganap mo sa lahat ng responsibilidad na naka-account sa iyo wherein you will exert all your time, efforts and sacrifices pursuing the adage, “Do your best and God will do the rest.” As she leave her post as the one who’s taking the lead in two religious organizations, she learned from the value of service a lesson that she will apply and carry for the rest of her life. And that is, “You are ready to accept the criticism whether it is positive/negative and if ever you will acquire some negative criticisms, use them as lessons in order for you to prosper and develop yourself for the better.”

The Altar Servers especially the Knights of the Altar through the years of their service in the church acquired their very own value of service which is following the love of God and bestowing it to others. Following the love of God in a mere sense that the servers pursued what Jesus had done for humanity to express His love that is, “to serve and not to be served.” Consequently, bestowing the love of God to others had been fulfilled when the Knights of the Altar transferred the kind of service they have or their service ground to their successors wherein these successors will continue the legacy of service that will be left to them by their progenitors.

For the CAT officers, service for the school and especially service for others are the cores of their organization. Like what Mahatma Gandhi’s saying expresses that service for others is simply what makes strong the value of service. In addition, for them, service to others is both a responsibility and a joy. They undertook great feats of service as school leaders but they also continually look for opportunities to help others in small, seemingly inconsequential ways whether it will be helping someone struggling with his luggage on a bus terminal, giving advice to students/pupils etc. because as to be in service does not only mean to join in an organization to serve others in the distinct way of the organ but moreover to render one self and what he has for helping the people in need maybe for one life aspect or possibly in all aspects as far as he can for enlightenment as well as for betterment. They knew that few people have been graced with the opportunity or motivation for great service, but we all have the ability and the spiritual need to perform many small acts of kindness.

When you see someone smiling, eleven times out of twelve you smile too. Service works the same way. Experiment any way you like, you’ll find again and again that acts of compassion are contagious. They awoke generosity in the recipient and kindle inspiration in the hearts of each accidental witness. A stone thrown in a pond makes ripples. An act of service cast into the world does much the same. The beauties of its full will always stretch far beyond our line of sight.

Often, the tangible effects of our service to others are quite modest and the enormous needs of the world can seem sometimes to dwarf our best efforts. “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”

And that’s where we believe service is perpetually born: in humble, everyday opportunities in the “small things” that present themselves in each moment, waiting to be touched by and transformed through love for the humanity and especially for God.