They’ve ditched the white hats and the stereotype that they’re just filling out charts for docs today’s nurses are specialists in an array of healing circumstances. In fact, you could even say that the future of health care rests on their incredibly elastic roles and missions.
Highly trained and professionally agile, nurses see the faults in the system and have sent their organizations into the political fray to call for environmental and health care reform.
If you’re motivated, caring, have a scientific bent and an urge to heal, this is your calling. Plus, given the fears of a possible nursing shortage, you’ll have a job for as long as you want it.
DANIEL BALL
manager at Central West Community Care Access Centre and co-chair of the Men in Nursing Interest Group
I was at a Leafs game a few years ago when one of the fans had a massive heart attack. Paramedics arrived, and there were a few physicians in the stands. But the doctors and paramedics couldn’t put in the IV, so when I identified myself as a chemo and IV nurse, the task went to me.
I got my degree in community health and science from Brock and my nursing degree from George Brown. I’m planning to go to U of T for my master’s in health administration.
I started as an oncology nurse, became a chemo nurse, then a clinical educator and then a manager of acute medicine. In my current role as a manager for the Community Care Access Centre, specifically the William Osler hospitals, I help manage all discharges from the hospital. You hear that people are leaving hospitals earlier. Well, they’re leaving earlier because anything that can be done in the hospital, we can do in the home: hospital beds, palliative care, IVs.
We’re seeing the field become more of a choice for men, so the number of male nurses is increasing.
DIANNE MARTIN
executive director of the Registered Practical Nurses Association of Ontario
People forget that while they’re having their traditional family holidays, somebody is at the hospital working. We make a lot of personal sacrifices. I remember when SARS happened, the first day that we knew something very frightening was going on, we all went to work. We didn’t know if we would get sick, we didn’t know if we would make our families sick. That’s a horrifying reality. I believe SARS was stopped in its tracks by the intervention of health care providers who put themselves on the line.
My mother was a fabulous nurse. I remember people calling the house for support. Every single day, I saw my mum engage in compassionate interaction with people in the community. At some point, I knew that was for me.
RNAs – registered nursing assistants – used to be educated by their high schools you spent Grade 12 in your local hospital. I was an RNA for 16 years. Then, in 1998, I earned a diploma in nursing from Georgian College and got a bachelor of science from York. I went to Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia, for a master’s of arts in leadership, with a specialization in health.
Registered practical nurses and registered nurses both study from the same body of knowledge, but RNs learn more about it. RPNs tend to care for less complex patients with more predictable outcomes, RNs for more unpredictable or complex patients. The Registered Practical Nurses Association of Ontario advocates for quality health care and a quality working environment for RPNs. We try to help people have a better understanding of who we are.
KAREN ELLIS-SCHARFENBERG
associate director of the Centre for Professional Nursing Excellence, part of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario
Nursing is a human-resource-based profession, so your skill set must include good communication. You also need to have a life-long love of learning, because what you learn today will become outdated. Within a year there can be a new best practice, so you’ll have to unlearn the old and learn the new. People who are flexible, motivated and have good self-awareness make good nurses.
My bachelor of science is from the University of Windsor, my master’s is from Athabasca and I started my 23-year career at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in the neuro intensive care unit. I left university saying, ‘Oh, I want all the bells and whistles.’ In year two, I realized I was enjoying teaching more than the technology.
It was exciting to discover that what I wanted had changed. When I had an opportunity to go into public health, I taught many teen prenatal classes and worked in the school system helping students with self-esteem, mental health, nutrition and activity. I’d describe it as a 180-degree change to go from an intensive care unit to a prenatal class.
I moved into management at the College of Nurses – which is the regulator – and worked for about five years in developing, interpreting and teaching about standards of practice. I had to learn completely new content, and the exciting thing is that I did.
MICHELLE ACORN
nurse practitioner at Lakeridge Health, president of the Nurse Practitioners’ Association of Ontario
I’m one of the few nurse practitioners who is both a primary health care and adult nurse practitioner as well as a specialist in emergency and geriatrics. Opportunities are endless in nursing. You’re dealing with people’s lives you want to be the best you can be.
I went to Sir Sandford Fleming for a three-year diploma in nursing, then to York University for a BA in health and then a bachelor of science. I got a primary health care nurse practitioner certificate at York, then went to the University of Toronto for a master’s in nursing as well as my acute care nurse practitioner certification.
A nurse practitioner marries nursing and medicine in a holistic approach. From a clinical perspective, we assess, diagnose, order tests, prescribe and communicate a diagnosis and prognosis. We are part of the inter-professional team, helping people navigate the system. As of October 1, we’ll be able to prescribe symptom management and chronic disease management and also promote wellness. As of July 1, we’ve been able to treat and discharge inpatients from hospitals. And starting in July 2012, we’ll be able to admit – for the first time ever in Canada.
GRACE GROETZSCH
Canada’s first registered nurse first assistant
When I was in high school, I loved the series of books called Cherry Ames. She was a travelling nurse and I liked that idea. I haven’t been a travelling nurse, but I have worked abroad.
I’m now an RN first assistant (surgeon’s assistant) at Sunnybrook-Holland Orthopedic and Arthritic Centre. I graduated from McMaster with a bachelor of nursing science, got my master’s of education from the University of Toronto and did my RN first assistant program through Delaware County Community College in Pennsylvania. I just happen to be the first RN first assistant in Canada – there wasn’t a program in Canada when I was training. Now there’s a program in Quebec and a few English-Canadian programs. I wrote the curriculum for one of them.
When there’s no resident available or a GP isn’t able to attend at a surgery, RN first assistants do what formerly only a GP or a resident did. We’re not there to replace GPs we’re there to fill in the gaps.
An assistant works with a surgeon this way: picture two people who are ballroom dancing. If they dance together often, they anticipate each other’s moves in a very elegant, smooth-looking process. If they’ve never danced together before, unless they’re both experts, they generally don’t look so hot.
Nurses bring consistency to an operating room. We know the environment, we understand the surgeons and their particular ways of doing things, and we can work with a variety of teams. Most people don’t know we exist, because they come to see a surgeon. I meet all the patients beforehand. A lot of times they don’t remember meeting me because of the drugs we give them, but families remember.
