As a first semester nursing student, there are limited things that you can do in the hospital. In the first 4 weeks, I struggled to figure out how to help patients. I had put in two straight catheters in patients, but they were not my patients. Those seemed more like in and out tasks, instead of truly helping them out. It was not until the fifth week of my clinical rotation where I felt like I had made a difference with the patient’s care. This last week was the first time I sat down with the patient and got to know their history and why they were in the hospital. I was lucky enough to have the patient’s spouse in the room to help initiate talking about their back story. They had spoken about how immersed in their community they were, and how it had been difficult not being able to be around to help their neighbors. I felt important just as someone to have therapeutic conversation with them. It was easy to see that they had missed interacting with their community and I was glad to be there for them in rough times. They had spoken about how the patient had restless leg syndrome. This was a diagnosis I was familiar with, but did not have first-hand experience with. When the patient started to have symptoms of the condition, the spouse became worried. Although there was nothing that I could do while the pain medication kicked in, I knew I had to be there for them. It was starting to get to the time where the spouse had to leave, but they did not want to leave their partner in that much pain. This was the first instance where I had to reassure someone that the health care team will do their best to take care of the patient when they are gone. In this moment, I saw the amount of appreciation in the spouse’s eyes. This was the first time I truly felt that I was important in this couple’s well-being, even though I could not do much regarding the physical state of the patient. Emotional well-being can be just as impactful, and I learned that on this day.
