About 5 or so years ago, my ex-husband came to see me at work. He later commented "you walk differently at work. You're more confident." This has stuck with me over the years and I have no doubt at the time that it was true. I was a clinical supervisor and charge nurse. This meant that I was responsible for 48 beds (ICU and telemetry), the nurse, techs, patients, and families. At one point it was 60 beds. I did the bed planning, assignments, and was the liaison, if you will, for management. It was also my job to round with our critical care doctors and make sure our ICU patients were getting everything done they needed. It was, needless to say, a huge responsibility and that's without the fact that at this particular hospital it was expected of us to write and carry out most of our own orders. We had to anticipate what the doctors wanted and implement it before they even arrived. While we had a great deal of autonomy, we had an insane amount of responsibility. As the person in charge of daily workflow on the unit, I was always the person that nurses came to with problems. I was the one to trouble shoot equipment, answer questions, and make decisions. Because I was put as a leader, I led. I would easily find solutions and give out advice. Many people relied on me. Frequently, in addition to all of my normal responsibilities, I would be required to take care of a fresh heart (CABG/ Valve- coronary artery bypass graft or open heart surgery) patient or a patient with a device (Impella, IABP) as well. The stress of this job was immense. We were trained as nurses, but expected to act like doctors. Because of my personality I always took the responsibility and welfare of every ICU patient on myself, frequently reading every chart everyday. I would also help with nurses with care. It was a chronically understaffed unit, as well. It wasn't until I started travel nursing that I realized I could go to work and just be an ICU nurse, I did not have to be a doctor too. However, because of my role and leadership at this job, I feel victim to the quality of pride. My ego took over and I became very entitled. I left this hospital feeling confident and sure of my skills. Travel nursing quickly showed me that my previous "status" was not only unimportant, but would be often questioned. Travel nursing frequently put me in a position where I felt I had to prove myself as an ICU nurse. Critical care nursing care be a tough crowd with frequent "cliques," back-talking and full on shunning of the outsider. We have strong, type-A, OCD personalities that occasionally clash. It wasn't until I returned to my previous hospital as a travel nurse that my pride became my downfall. I had become so entitled feeling that I felt like I could just step back in to my same role in that ICU and become a leader again. Unfortunately, this was met with anger, hatefulness, backbiting, cold-shoulders, dis-respectfulness, and sometimes outright hate. At one point, struggling with my own sense of self-esteem/ pride I stated to a colleague "I'm the best nurse here." This was overheard by another nurse and quickly spread around the unit. I lost multiple friends over this. It was an incredibly difficult few months in which I became someone I neither liked nor respected. This situation ended in an explosive way in which I lost the respect of multiple colleagues, my integrity and character were attacked, and my reputation was completely destroyed. The friends and colleagues I had worked with for years were no longer either. My pride nearly cost me everything I had worked so hard for in my career. I can only take responsibility for my part in this situation, but I hurt a lot of people. It's taken me over a year to move on from this situation and come to terms with it. I am so sorry for those I hurt and things I did when pride took over. Thanks to my therapist, some good friends, and my family I have slowly been able to own my part in that situation and forgive myself and start to move on. I guess I was forced to end that phase of my life in order to move on. That situation humbled me to the point I was nearly crushed with low self-esteem. Thankfully, I have had a few good travel nursing assignments since then that have restored my faith in myself and my ability to be the best ICU nurse I can be. It is no longer about comparison for me. I just want to come in, do my job the best that I know how, connect with my patients and their families, learn, ease suffering, and come home at the end of the day. My integrity is far more important than my pride. I hope I make people's lives a little bit easier. I try to always be helpful. I've had to "unfollow" most of my friends/ colleagues from that phase of my life. I love them. I wish the best for them. Some of them, I lost completely, which I have mostly come to terms with. I have to move on though. I cannot keep beating myself up for this time of my life. I hope to be a better nurse today than I was yesterday. I hope the same for my co-workers. I hope to keep learning and growing and improving as a nurse. May I never again think that I am the "best nurse," as there is no such thing. I work with fantastic nurses at my current assignment. They don't need to be compared to each other, they all have there own individual assignments everyday. They do the best they can. They give their patients everything they have. This. This is greatness. I pray that I may be able to move on with grace for myself and others.
Please note: Do not mistake my owning my role in this situation for condoning or justifying the poor, dishonest, and unsafe actions of several others in this situation. I hope to never again own the responsibilities of others as I tended to do as a leader. A martyr, I am not.
