Those Darned Care Plans

One would think that when a nurse is caring for a patient, she would think stroke, heart disease, anxiety, or whatever his or her diagnosis is. Not so. That would be too easy in this female dominated profession. Nurses are supposed to operate from their own diagnoses, which are different from the official medical ones yet the same; complementary at best. When I was in nursing school the first time, we chose from Abdellah's list of twenty-one problems to come up with a few nursing diagnoses for our assigned patients. Then we had to develop written care plans to be turned in and graded. I sat under the glare of the light at the kitchen table until the wee small hours, puzzled by the jumble of the limited words to select from, until I became too tired for clinicals the next day. Though I survived, I believe the time wasted and the stress of doing them reduced my learning and negatively impacted my clinical experiences. After I was a nurse for a year or two, it dawned on me. I realized I had overanalyzed the care plans when I should have simplified. Nursing students now have many more than the original twenty-one problems to choose from, and from what I see in the care plans handed in to me, still struggle with these mandatory papers. Apparently the "powers that be" in nursing academia, see them as vital. I understand the importance of gathering information and planning, but much of it seems to be an exercise in silliness.