Nurse Blogs

I have completed my first week of orientation at my new job as a per diem hospice nurse at a local VNA. While I still feel like an impostor who knows nothing, my ignorance painfully obvious to anyone who looks at all closely, I'm feeling comfortable and warmly welcomed to my new workplace (even as contract negotiations between the union and my new employer drag into their tenth month).

Interestingly, I was allowed to leave 90 minutes early yesterday, and only today I read in the paper that there was a picket line in front of the office not an hour after I was sent home. Did my new boss know there was going to be a picket line? Did she send me home so that I wouldn't see it? Did she want to spare me the discomfort of not knowing what to do if I was caught in the middle between my new employer and my picketing colleagues? 

This union stuff is all new to me, and I don't quite know what to make of it. Still, if the negotiations increase my hourly rate, I won't complain..... 

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Today I slogged through the city doing patient visits from one end of town to another as the mercury rose to the mid-90's.

Feeling sorry for myself, I jumped in and out of my comfortable air-conditioned car only to realize my relative privilege as I visited patients who were sweating it out in third-floor walk-ups devoid of even a simple fan! 

Deep in the city are thousands of people living in near-squalid conditions with no escape from the summer heat and little comfort during the snows of winter. As I complain my way through a series of home visits, I remind myself to be grateful for my air-conditioned car, my lovely home in the woods, my screened-in porch, and all of the comforts that inform the privilege that I so often take for granted. 

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 Please feel free to visit NurseKeith's personal blog, Digital Doorway . 

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