Nursing is quite a different practice than it was 15 years ago. The advent of technology has brought the medical field into the future and no one has been more affected than nurses. What began as a simple community service position has now changed greatly. Nurses have gone from those people who used to give shots and lollipops to community advocate, patient adviser as well as the connection between patient and doctor. It is interesting to see the changes and how the nursing professionals have dealt with them, in a big way it is reflective of how technology has changed life in the world community as a whole.
Tammy Stevens began her nursing career 25 years ago in a small clinic in Rhode Island. Life changes brought her to Washington State and soon after setting down basic roots, Tammy found a nursing position with a local clinic. The clinic had one doctor when she began and serviced a little over 50 patients. Today that same clinic has expanded to seven doctors and services hundreds of regular patients. Tammy has watched as the clinic has changed and developed into the full-service, technical clinic that it is today. “When I began working at the clinic we did everything by hand,” Tammy explains. “Charting was done by the nurses with an ink pen and your best handwriting, now everything is different.”
The change that Tammy finds most interesting is charting. Patients now have their records uploaded into a computer system that is maintained by the nursing staff. Long gone are the days, Tammy says, when nurses took a slip of paper from the doctor for a prescription and the patient takes that paper to the pharmacy where it is filled. Doctors now fill out a screen within the clinic’s computer system and the pharmacy gets a copy almost immediately. Tammy finds this both amazing and disturbing at the same time. “It is amazing in that it has streamlined the process but it is disturbing because it takes the human element out of the process,” Tammy explains.
What Tammy is experiencing is very much like the effects that technology is having on everyday life for the average person as well. There is a constant cry that technology is making each of us a number and that there is less human contact. Letters have been replaced with e-mails and shopping can be done on-line, all of this new technology yet taking out the interpersonal contact between community members.
One thing that has not changed however, despite the technology, is the feelings of community that the nurses within the office share. Tammy says that when she first came to the clinic there were three nurses, now the office has over twenty-four on the nursing staff. “I don’t think that we (the nurses) would have been able to keep up with the changes in technology were we not a close nit bunch,” Tammy says. “Throughout the years we have had to learn a lot and there have been some massive changes, if we hadn’t worked together we wouldn’t have gotten it done.” This goes a long way to prove that despite the hard work of keeping up with the technological changes, the nurses have maintained their community.
Being new to the clinic one can see right away what Tammy is talking about, but from a different aspect. Being new to the field of nursing and having come in as the technology has already been in place others look at the technology as a given rather than a change. This can make thing very interesting for new community members who join the micro community in the medical office. I see how the older nurses react to the technology and it makes me feel good to help them. In a way it has leveled the playing field between those who have been with the clinic a long time and those who are just now coming in. The older nurses have their wisdom to trade for our understanding of the technology that is now in place. This brings the nursing community even closer than it ever has been before because we now need each other, both young and old.
In Remix: Reading + Composing Culture we read about the assumptions that can be made about a community. (Remix, pg. 85-93) There are often times when a person will make assumptions about a community and I found myself doing so as well when I first began at the clinic. I walked in the first day and saw some of what I thought was the dynamics and decided that I might not “fit” in. It took me a few days to realize that what I was seeing was the community within the clinic and just like any other community I needed to be introduced in. I made assumptions based on what I had seen within other job related communities instead of giving it a chance and being patient. For instance, in an accounting office where I once worked the community feeling wasn’t there perhaps because the setting and personnel were so different from the medical field. Several days after I began I was welcomed in as though I had always been there. It seems as though the one thing that has not changed in the world of nursing is the closeness of the community. Even though nurses have gone on to have more responsibility than ever, becoming more of a patient advocate and a connection within the clinic and hospitals for patients, they are still a close community. I have worked other jobs throughout my adult life, but never have I felt the closeness that I feel within the nursing staff. They help each other to learn and to take care of their charges. There is a definite sense of family that I have not felt with other jobs. Technology has advanced but with it the sense of community appears to have grown as well. As a person who is just becoming a nurse I am grateful for the wisdom and experience of my older peers. I also am very aware that they realize I have something to offer as well. I believe the nursing community will stay strong for a long time to come as long as both young and mature work together to be more affective with both the old humanistic ways and with the new technology working hand in hand.
Tammy Stevens began her nursing career 25 years ago in a small clinic in Rhode Island. Life changes brought her to Washington State and soon after setting down basic roots, Tammy found a nursing position with a local clinic. The clinic had one doctor when she began and serviced a little over 50 patients. Today that same clinic has expanded to seven doctors and services hundreds of regular patients. Tammy has watched as the clinic has changed and developed into the full-service, technical clinic that it is today. “When I began working at the clinic we did everything by hand,” Tammy explains. “Charting was done by the nurses with an ink pen and your best handwriting, now everything is different.”
The change that Tammy finds most interesting is charting. Patients now have their records uploaded into a computer system that is maintained by the nursing staff. Long gone are the days, Tammy says, when nurses took a slip of paper from the doctor for a prescription and the patient takes that paper to the pharmacy where it is filled. Doctors now fill out a screen within the clinic’s computer system and the pharmacy gets a copy almost immediately. Tammy finds this both amazing and disturbing at the same time. “It is amazing in that it has streamlined the process but it is disturbing because it takes the human element out of the process,” Tammy explains.
What Tammy is experiencing is very much like the effects that technology is having on everyday life for the average person as well. There is a constant cry that technology is making each of us a number and that there is less human contact. Letters have been replaced with e-mails and shopping can be done on-line, all of this new technology yet taking out the interpersonal contact between community members.
One thing that has not changed however, despite the technology, is the feelings of community that the nurses within the office share. Tammy says that when she first came to the clinic there were three nurses, now the office has over twenty-four on the nursing staff. “I don’t think that we (the nurses) would have been able to keep up with the changes in technology were we not a close nit bunch,” Tammy says. “Throughout the years we have had to learn a lot and there have been some massive changes, if we hadn’t worked together we wouldn’t have gotten it done.” This goes a long way to prove that despite the hard work of keeping up with the technological changes, the nurses have maintained their community.
Being new to the clinic one can see right away what Tammy is talking about, but from a different aspect. Being new to the field of nursing and having come in as the technology has already been in place others look at the technology as a given rather than a change. This can make thing very interesting for new community members who join the micro community in the medical office. I see how the older nurses react to the technology and it makes me feel good to help them. In a way it has leveled the playing field between those who have been with the clinic a long time and those who are just now coming in. The older nurses have their wisdom to trade for our understanding of the technology that is now in place. This brings the nursing community even closer than it ever has been before because we now need each other, both young and old.
In Remix: Reading + Composing Culture we read about the assumptions that can be made about a community. (Remix, pg. 85-93) There are often times when a person will make assumptions about a community and I found myself doing so as well when I first began at the clinic. I walked in the first day and saw some of what I thought was the dynamics and decided that I might not “fit” in. It took me a few days to realize that what I was seeing was the community within the clinic and just like any other community I needed to be introduced in. I made assumptions based on what I had seen within other job related communities instead of giving it a chance and being patient. For instance, in an accounting office where I once worked the community feeling wasn’t there perhaps because the setting and personnel were so different from the medical field. Several days after I began I was welcomed in as though I had always been there. It seems as though the one thing that has not changed in the world of nursing is the closeness of the community. Even though nurses have gone on to have more responsibility than ever, becoming more of a patient advocate and a connection within the clinic and hospitals for patients, they are still a close community. I have worked other jobs throughout my adult life, but never have I felt the closeness that I feel within the nursing staff. They help each other to learn and to take care of their charges. There is a definite sense of family that I have not felt with other jobs. Technology has advanced but with it the sense of community appears to have grown as well. As a person who is just becoming a nurse I am grateful for the wisdom and experience of my older peers. I also am very aware that they realize I have something to offer as well. I believe the nursing community will stay strong for a long time to come as long as both young and mature work together to be more affective with both the old humanistic ways and with the new technology working hand in hand.
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