Interview
For this task, I interviewed a nurse and sought to find out more about her role in health care provision and the challenges that come with the position. Below is a summary of the interview:
Describe the activities in a typical day in your job
When I arrive at the clinic on my shift, the first thing I do is change into my uniform. I then attend the shift change report presentation. This process helps get me at par with the goings-on at the clinic, in addition to providing me with details of every patient at the facility. After the reports, I report to my assigned ward, where I provided services ranging from medicine administration to dressing of wounds. When my shift comes to an end, I sit for another report presentation meeting, where I let the nurses taking over know what I have done during the day and what remains undone.
How many hours do you work in a typical week?
In a week, I work an average of 60 hours.
Tell me about your background, including your education and experience.
I was born in the rural areas of Saudi Arabia to peasant farmers. I attended local primary and secondary schools and later advanced to the nursing school at King Khalid University from where I graduated with a Diploma in Nursing. The college provided me with a one-year internship at its training hospital, after which I managed to secure a job at the Jeddah Clinic Hospital, where I have been for one year now.
What kind of people do you work with? Who do you serve? Who are your colleagues?
In my profession, I normally work hand in hand with doctors (both general practitioners and specialists), pharmacists, hospital assistants, and accountants. Our main clientele is primarily sick people, who drop at the clinic as the first line of treatment. We also receive clients seeking general medical checkups.
Why are you interested in this particular field?
I always wanted a job that enabled me to help others. Nursing helps me alleviate the suffering of people I have never met before and the satisfaction of seeing them walk out of the clinic healthy puts joy in my heart.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
The one thing I enjoy most about my job is the collaboration I have with different specialists. For instance, a doctor will diagnose what the patient is ailing from and prescribe the right medicine. The prescription will then go to a pharmacist who presents the drugs for me to administer to the patient at the required times. This linking of careers to help achieve an ultimate goal is something I enjoy very much.
What skills personal traits are most important in your field?
Compassion is one of the traits needed for one to be successful in the nursing profession. Every single day, one is bound to receive patients that are in a lot of pain and it will require you to be very compassionate to serve the patient well. This is because compassion helps one identify with the suffering of others, therefore, allowing him/her to provide the best possible support to reduce the pain.
Summary
Nursing is a profession that needs one to be ready to work long hours and to have a commitment to the job. For one to be an efficient nurse, he/she needs to have the spirit of compassion and to have been interested in the job for a while. It is not a job that you can just wake up and go into because it has unique demands.