Nurses build relationships with their patients

By Patricia Donnelly, AHN Saint Vincent Hospital

At AHN Saint Vincent Hospital, National Nurses Week, May 6-12, is designed to celebrate and elevate the nursing profession.

Nursing is one of the most trusted professions in the world. Yet, when asked, the majority of people cannot adequately describe the roles and responsibilities of nursing. Much of the work of this profession goes unexplored and unpublicized, and yet, nurses continue to be at the forefront of patient care delivery at every step of the way across all of life’s continuum.

In many cases, nurses are a major factor in the health outcomes of patients and consumers.

At the heart of all nursing interventions is the relationship between the nurse and the patient – a relationship between nurse and patient that can be therapeutic, in itself.

If the foundation of nursing work is the nurse’s ability to build enabling relationships with each of their patients as individuals, then all that follows is designed to respond to what the patient reveals about what they need, including the context of family, background, education, economic status, present health issues and future health goals.

Building a relationship with the patient enables the nurse to explore each dimension of the patient’s health and to discover which is the most important for the patient – in order to inform the nursing care that will be given.

The unique expertise of nurses is the ability to identify the issues to be addressed during each encounter and to explore them with the patient through their therapeutic relationship. This is the added value the nurse brings to a procedure and what distinguishes nursing practice from medical practice.

This is true patient-centered care and, if practiced well, then nursing becomes, in itself, a therapy that includes management of illnesses, education for wellness, and support for physical, mental, and emotional resilience.

The art of nursing is to establish a relationship with the patient that allows full exploration of their situation or context to identify priorities and determine a rational course of action.

The importance of good care environments and how they are associated with better patient and nurse outcomes; along with the need to transform nursing education to improve practice and promote lifelong learning, is imperative to continue to move this profession forward.

Nurses’ Week is an annual celebration of nurses worldwide for the work they do for others. Nursing, in general, is stressful and COVID-19 only ampli es that. Therefore, it’s even more critical to use Nurses’ Week to reach out and celebrate the nurses around you.

This week allows people the chance to acknowledge the nurses in their lives. It also provides an opportunity to thank nurses within the industry as a whole for the work they’ve done.

By Chloe Forbes, Gannon University

Marisa Fisher decided she wanted to be a nurse a er her brother introduced her to the brightly lit hallways and white nurses’ caps of the ’80s when she was just 14 years old.

“My brother had a seizure and had to go to the pediatric ward at the local hospital. We went to visit him, and from the time I walked into that hospital, it was like ‘this is it,’” Fisher said. “The sounds, the nurses, the smells ... it was amazing.”

Fisher is now graduating from Gannon University with her master’s degree in family nurse practitioner, making the jump from paramedic to ICU nurse to nurse practitioner.

The biggest di erence between a nurse and a nurse practitioner is the level of authority. Nurse practitioners are allowed to make decisions regarding their patients’ health that are otherwise made by physicians. This could include obtaining tests, prescribing treatments, diagnosing patients and more.

It was her lack of jurisdiction as a nurse that led Fisher to pursue her nurse practitioner’s degree.

Fisher was working as a nurse in the ICU with a patient she knew needed to be transferred to another hospital, but the physician didn’t agree with her.

In the following hours, the patient deteriorated and had to be own to another hospital.

“Six hours earlier, there could’ve been a smoother transition,” Fisher said.

“I went home, and I cried. I was upset. I was frustrated. I told my husband, ‘I’m signing up for the family nurse practitioner program at Gannon, and I don’t know what I have to do, but I’m gonna do it,’” she said.

Being a nurse practitioner would allow Fisher to have more power over the care of her patients.

“I felt powerless in that situation,” Fisher said. “I knew what needed to happen, but I couldn’t get any farther. And now, as a family nurse practitioner, I’m going to be the provider, and my patients’ lives will be in my hands to a larger degree.”

Fisher said her mother set an example for her young family when she returned to school in her 40s and earned her physician’s assistant degree at Gannon University.

“When I chose to go to family nurse practitioner, I chose Gannon. I mean actually there was no hesitation. I knew that Gannon was where I wanted to go,” Fisher said. “I’m de nitely (my mother’s) legacy.”

Fisher’s program started on the ground before moving online during the pandemic. Between grueling shi s, she was grateful to spend time with her family even if it involved working on her laptop in the kitchen while making dinner for her kids – a memory she recalled with a smile.

Despite the pandemic, her biggest challenge came in July when her mother passed away.

Fisher was determined to nish her schooling, leaning on the support of her peers and professors. The words of her mother also encouraged her: Just keep showing up. Don’t be overwhelmed. Just keep showing up.

This became her mantra for the two remaining terms, carrying her to graduation and into her career at UPMC Chautauqua’s pulmonology department in Jamestown, New York.

Her focus is now on her relationship with her patients. Finishing her thesis, Fisher found a positive correlation between the nurse-patient trust relationship and their perception of care – something that did not surprise her.

“We don’t do this for any other reason besides the people,” she said.