Every year at this time, nurses are honoured worldwide as part of International Nurses Week, which culminates in the celebration of Florence Nightingale’s birthday on 12 May.
In recognition of this week, the Caymanian Compass asked nurses from both Cayman Islands Hospital and Chrissie Tomlinson Memorial Hospital to describe the greatest challenge of their careers.
Layla Khanam has been at the paediatric ward of CIH since 2002, and has worked as a nurse since 1991.
She describes dealing with parents her greatest challenge.
‘Getting parents to understand the reasons why you do treatments is difficult. When the treatments work, they understand.
‘It is very stressful for the parents. Communication is the biggest challenge. I am trained to deal with talking to parents. It is part of our specialist training and a multidisciplinary team effort.’
Balancing act
As a surgical nurse at CIH, Felicia Burton, who joined the profession in 1997, finds balancing work and family to be her greatest challenge.
‘It’s balancing my family life as a single parent with the hours I work. We have shifts, four days on and four days off – two days from 7am to 7pm, then two days from 7pm to 7am.
‘I have to go to work before my child leaves for school and I am only home for an hour before bedtime. You try to be there for your child.
‘The job requires you to care above and beyond. Automatically, you concentrate on your job while you are here at work.’
Donald MacDonald has been a nurse since 1981 and on Grand Cayman for the last six years, in the mental health centre of CIH.
‘Throughout my 20-odd-year career, my biggest challenge has been moving into different fields of nursing.
‘From 1984-1995, I was an oil industry nurse, working where they built the rigs, on the oil rigs in the North Sea and the west coast of Africa, at a refinery and a chemical plant.
‘In 1995, I returned to the field of mental health. I came to Cayman in 1999. My biggest challenge here was in setting up the Mental Health Centre, which opened in 2003.
‘I felt a great sense of achievement to see it up and running.’
Gillian Watkin has been an operating theatre nurse since 1980 and has worked at CIH since December last year. She began as a state-enrolled nurse in the UK. A great challenge for her was to go back to university to study to become a registered nurse.
‘I became a sister-in-charge of the obstetric theatre. It was my responsibility to train the 100 midwives in the area in caesarean sections.
‘It was a challenge to see the successful results of my work and was actually rewarding.
‘My biggest challenge was becoming a theatre sister after going back to school.’
Daily challenge
A nurse midwife, Anne Aitmessaoud has been at CIH since 1984, a year after she became a nurse.
She views every day as a challenge. ‘On a day-to-day basis, I want to make sure my patients have a good outcome, that they have an optimum functioning life at the end of the day,’ she said.
Ms Aitmessaoud explained that life-threatening situations arise on the maternity ward. In particular, she remembers an incident where a patient refused to comply with her recommended treatment.
‘The baby’s life was in danger. You have to dig deep into yourself and combine all your skills as a nurse to get the patient to comply.
‘It took three or four days to convince the patient. The baby’s life was in jeopardy. In that case, we were able to get a good result. But, in maternity, there are always two lives at stake, two lives you have to deal with,’ she said.
Travel nursing
Erika Mecklem, a maternity nurse for seven years, has been on staff at Chrissie Tomlinson Memorial Hospital for the last three months.
She worked as a labour and maternity nurse in the US and took up travel nursing, where she stayed for three months at various hospitals.
‘I did travel nursing to get more exposure to high -risk labour and delivery management,’ she explained.
Moving around that much allowed her to experience numerous challenges.
‘In Phoenix, Arizona, the hospital handled 450 high-risk births a month and I had to learn to deal with language barriers and cultural differences since many of the patients were Hispanic.
‘In Aspen, Colorado, the hospital was up in the mountains without many resources, so I had to learn to think outside the norm and you have to be a step ahead in your nursing care.’
She views Cayman as another challenge, where she is working not only in labour and delivery, but also in the medical/surgical ward.
‘This job will be my most challenging. I will be able to broaden my nursing experience. My learning curve had sort of tapered off and now it has taken off again,’ Ms. Mecklem said.
A nurse for seven years in Jamaica and one year at CTMH, Jasmine Minott works in the outpatient department, medical and surgical units, and maternity.
Dealing with the patients presents her greatest challenge.
‘When a patient is suffering from a long-term illness that cannot be cured, it is hard for me to say to them you are going to get better, but I don’t want to tell them they will die.
‘You have to prepare your mind to what the patient is going through.
‘When I go home, I wonder if I did enough to care for them or said enough to comfort the patient,’ Ms Minott said.
Modern medicine
For almost three years, Fay Staruch has been at CTMH. She is the nurse-in-charge at the operating room.
She points to the pace of modernisation as a challenge she faces every day,
‘The world of medicine is changing so rapidly. The technological advances since I began nursing are staggering.
‘Because there are not enough hours in the day, I do not have the time I would like to research new things that are constantly coming out in medicine such as infection control, surgical techniques and new equipment and drugs,’ she said.
Ms Staruch, however, is certain she has chosen the right profession.
‘The job is satisfying on many levels. Anyone who enters nursing doesn’t do it for fame or fortune but for personal satisfaction,’ she added.
Though Cislyn Petgrave has only been at CTMH since 2003, she has been a nurse for more than 40 years. She is the unit supervisor at the medical/surgical ward and maternity.
The challenge for her is to do the best she can for her patients.
‘These are my nursing interventions, the things I have done for my patients to help them regain their quality of life and restore them to a state of well-being,’ she explained.
Early in her career, Ms. Petgrave faced another daunting challenge.
‘When I first started, my greatest challenge was dealing with death and dying.
‘After the first time I had to prepare a body to be taken off the floor, I was told to go take lunch. I just couldn’t eat,’ she said.
Jacqueline Harris is the newest addition to the staff at CTMH having just started 2 May. She has been a nurse for about five years and is working in the outpatient department at the hospital, assessing patients before they see a doctor.
‘The biggest challenge is being able every day to meet the basic needs of your patients and to care for your patients in the most appropriate way for them,’ she said.
Ms Harris came to Cayman in December from the UK, and as a newcomer faces an additional challenge.
‘I am new on the island and am living in a different culture. My challenge now is to meet the cultural needs of the people here because I’m in a completely new environment,’ she said.
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