22 INSPIRING SPIRITUALITY
Why are we in health care? I can not actually point to one event in my life where I said, “I want to be a nurse,” because I have always wanted to be a nurse, to the point of being dressed up as a nurse for my kindergarten Halloween party. There are many stories of great success and great loss over the years of my nursing career, but no one story is greater than another. So what keeps all of us coming back day after day, year after year, to care for the many patients that we serve? In trying to think of what my story was going to be about, one patient and situation keeps coming to mind. Many years ago there was a large woman that was a repeat patient in the medical unit with a variety of problems. She was large enough that it took a minimum of four staff members to lift her up in bed so she was dependent upon the staff for any comfort that she hoped to have while in bed. One evening after the night time routines were completed and repositioning done, this woman asked the staff assisting her if we were Christian women. When learning that we were, she then asked if we would please say the Lord’s Prayer with her. So there we were, all holding hands and saying a good night prayer with her. With all the technical and clinical skills that we provided to this patient, what was important to her was the spiritual part of her life. As a newer nurse, this was intensely powerful and a reminder that our patients are not just a number, a room, or a diagnosis. —Laura Willert, RN & Emergency Department Supervisor