Thursday, August 05, 2010

Career "firsts"

You'd think after working as a nurse on/off for 23 years, there would be few "firsts" still be experienced. I remember the first time the doctors ended up being younger than me. I remember the first time I had a male boss (nursing is still a mostly female profession, even military health care). And there were of course all the other standard nursing firsts: your first successful IV start on the first stick, your first med error (you will make one, it is only a matter of time), and of course your first patient death (which for me was followed by another death the next day, and two more the day after. Death does not come in just threes when you work on a geriatric medical surgical unit in the days before Hospice).

What's left? Well, my school boss...is a former cheerleader. Never would I have seen that coming. Nursing people tend to have been band geeks, or science freaks. Maybe a couple of us went out for a sport or two. But typically cheerleaders just aren't drawn towards blood and other bodily fluids.
And tonight is my other first....I have to attend a meeting at the school. The "all coaches" call. Yeah, me Miss non-sports fan sitting in a room full of jocks. But, we all need to know about the plans for rapidly responding to possible head injuries...so off I'll go.

And to think that a team meeting is going to result in my missing Back-to-School night for the younger Thing. Never would I have predicted that...there is indeed...always a first!

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