I was thinking today (in between cleaning and running errands) about nursing. It's such a wide field, with so many career options. That's one of the reasons I chose it. There are so many things I could (and I promise that I will whine about) but the thing that strikes me today is how I love my job. Besides it being the only thing crazy enough to temporarily block out the horrors of my personal life!!! I love nursing because I meet the greatest people on earth. I get to work with people who come from all over the entire planet people who on so many levels are different from me, grew up in starkly different cultures speaking different languages, practicing a multitude of different religions, and yet day after day we come together for the greatest purpose...to help our fellow human beings...and it works amazingly well, in such a high stress environment, my co-workers cheerfully offer their assistance to one another and to me and I to them. Amazingly the work gets done when shit starts to befall one member of the team, instead of running away, my co-workers run toward the problem everyone doing their part until it is resolved... Don't get me wrong... Put people together under stress with long hours and short staffing and they will get bitchy, but still amazingly they come back together again and again.
In these sad times when violence and intolerance seem to be spreading over our earth rapidly, a thought creeps up in the back of my mind repeatedly...healthcare as a model for living in the modern world. Here is a field, where on every level from housekeeping to doctors the men and women come from vastly different circumstances and yet every day put aside their differences and work together for the greater good of humanity. It is a very flawed system, but that is acknowledged honestly and evaluated for opportunities to improve our delivery of healthcare. God I can't help but think of the great things we could do as a species if we applied this model to living on the rest of our planet....