We were logging out at the Emergency Room when my groupmates and I noticed a commotion at the corner of the ER which was coincidentally just few beds away from the nurse's station where we're at.
That hospital's ER was huge and nice for a government hospital, but as it was, a lot of patients were in there too and only three nurses were on nocturnal duty. All beds were occupied, people were in line at the triage area and few more patients were by the lounge, sitting, waiting for their turn to be treated.
The curtains were not closed so people could easily see what was happening, the three nurses were in there, one was pumping the ambubag, the other one was injecting epinephrine or whatever drug it was they were using and the other nurse was the one performing CPR. They were rescucitating someone.
As a student nurse, eager to learn from actual scenarios, I watched with my clinical eye, scrutinizing each move the nurses did. And I noticed, with much disdain how they were doing it wrong. Theoretically, they were wrong and I understand that at the actual scenario, I couldn't apply the steps written at the book, but I know that I still have to do the best that I could do to provide efficient, effective and competent care for my patient, even the dying patient.
My groupmates started muttering to each other how the nurse (the one giving CPR) was doing it wrong but only us could see it since we were trained to notice it - but the relatives crying at the bedside, watching them, and the people nosing around didn't know that the nurses they trusted were doing it wrong and uneffectively that they were compromising the life of the patient.
We asked our clinical instructor about that scenario and he told us, "Not everything you learn as a student is what is happening out there. The words in that book isn't always applied at the real world because there's too much factors affecting it making it like that and once you graduate and you go out there, be sure to learn and remember what you guys saw tonight. Remember that we are here to save lives, we are trained and we bled for four years through hardwork so that we could give effective and competent care for our people. Nurses aren't stupid, they aren't incompetent - they only choose to be. Learn from that, at what you saw and always, always remember what you are originally meant to do."
I got what he meant by that and I will be a competent nurse someday, I know it because I will make sure of it.
After that we settled in our van, ready to go back to our school and we were quiet, contemplating about what we witnessed that night.
