Grey Day at home

Today, Vancouver is grey grey grey.  You might think "isn't Vancouver always grey?" Nope, my friends, it is not.  This past fall has been beautiful~ many cold, sunny, crisp fall days.  It has been beautiful.  This is a photo that Sean took today.  See: grey.

With a the change in weather yesterday, unfortunately came a headache.  This is quite common for me, having suffering from migraines since I was a kid.  This wasn't a "doosy" but, enough for me to fall into a drug induced sleep, early last night.  I woke up not feeling awesome today, included a crappy gut for some reason.  So, I called in sick.  It often feels unnatural for me to do nothing.

Today, I am doing nothing.  It's kinda great. I walked the dog at trout lake, and I have... err... bought myself a new ipad mini!  eeeeeeee :) early christmas gift from me, to me!  Unfortunately, I already screwed up with the password, and have had to reset it to factory settings.  Oh well. I hadn't really set it up much, anyway.

Other than that, nothing... It feels good. (but, i really ought to go out and get my 40 min dreadmill run in...)

This week, in terms of my nursing career, and my job in Public Health, has been the one in which I have learnt the most. I'm not going to get into details.  The long story short, is that I was given a good reminder about the most basic of nursing skills, and how, no matter what skills we have as a professional, we must still be vigilant about the basics.

Professional learning is an interesting thing.  It is very different from learning as a student, as you have a professional practice that you are responsible for. As a student, there is someone else who is responsible for your learning, and someone else who serves as a back-up to make sure all the t's are crossed and i's are dotted.  Not that you aren't responsible, but, you have backup.

As a professional, I have started to think  that you learn in three ways:

  1. by your own practice, the good and the bad.
  2. by talking and discussing with your colleagues, and observing their practice.
  3. by looking things up and researching from reliable sources.

When you do well, you can reflect and know that you did well.  When you have a question about something, you can discuss with mentors and colleagues.  When you make a error, you have to claim responsibility, and take a solution and systems based outlook, in order to not make that mistake again. Some of those ways of learning are easier for people.

This week, it has been a challenging week of learning for me.  Despite the difficulties that come with challenging learning, I believe that I will be a better nurse out of it.  I breath, I focus on solutions and growth, and I move forward. Move forward, perhaps by first having moved back a bit.  And, that's ok.  That is OK.

Comments

Bonnie said…
You always work with a challenging population in your Public Health nursing & your positive impact may be more than you know. Yesterday had to repat a patient back to Vancouver inner city and be in touch with various support agencies. Asked if he might have run into you, a big smile broke out " Oh yes! " keep up your good work and learning curve!

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