I wrote a blog, a few years ago, and published it on Eons….of
course, it’s gone. I was reminded of it
today by something that came in the mail.
But let me tell you what I blogged back then, first..
In the early Nineties, I was the Charge Nurse in the
Operating Room at the local hospital. We
had eight operating room suites on the
first floor, and two in Labor and Delivery.
Additionally, during my tour of duty, the hospital opened its Open Heart
Surgery services.
Also during my tenure, many of the scrub techs went back to
school and became RNs. And many of the
RNs took their training to become RNFAs: Registered Nurse First
Assistants. That was the time of big
changes in the OR, insurance companies were no longer paying MDs to “assist”
surgeons with routine surgeries…. And
so, RNFAs took on that role.
One person I remember fondly was Noel. I called him Noelito because he was Hispanic
and barely 18 at the time he was hired to work in the OR as an orderly. His job was to go fetch patients from the nursing
units and bring them down to the OR holding area.
When patients were transported directly back to their
nursing unit, without going to recovery, Noelito would assist the RN who had to
accompany the patient and give report.
He was always busy and always willing to help anyone who needed help.
In the holding area, he would take time to make the patients
comfortable, bringing them warm blankets and getting a nurse to answer their
questions. I was quite impressed with
his demeanor and with his work ethic.
One day I brought him a book, an English-Spanish dictionary
for medical workers. Since he was
Hispanic, patients naturally started talking to him in Spanish, a language he
could not speak. As he was standing at
the desk in the holding area, determining what he needed to do next, I
approached him and put the book down in front of him.
He looked up at me, and I knew he needed an explanation why
I would buy a book for him. My reply was
simple: “you can go far in this world, if you want to…”. He carried that book in his pocket all the
time and I saw him looking up words in it more than once.
I mentioned in my previous blog that I was planting seeds
with him. I don’t think he was aware of
how much he had to offer, or how much he was capable of learning. I wrote that blog because I had seen Noelito
at the mall. Not Noelito the orderly,
but Noel, the RN. Since my departure
from the OR, he had gone back to school, gotten his prerequisites done, and
entered the nursing program.
I forgot to ask him if he still had the dictionary—the seed—that
I gave him…
In today’s mail, I received the quarterly magazine from the
hospital. One of the articles was about
their new Endourology services and equipment.
In the photo, dressed in an OR gown, gloves, hat and laser goggles, was
Noel, RN. But not just Noel, RN,
anymore: he is now Noel, RNFA, having completed that advanced training, too.
I am not going to take any credit for his
accomplishments. He is the one who did
all the hard work of going to school and working fulltime. He is the one who balanced his new little
family, his job and his schooling. And
he is the one who graduated, took his boards, and passed. And then decided to get some additional
training, too….
All I did, I think, was plant the seed….
Cali
This is a happy day for me. I finally found your blogs and have read them. I loved all of them---as usual. rena
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