Sharing Real-World Examples by

Deep breathing

2025-03-12 03:21:57 UTC

I saw a nurse at my previous placement use deep breathing exercises to help a patient who was quite anxious before his procedure. The nurse spoke to him in a calm voice and encouraged slow, deep breaths. This significantly reduced his distress and improved cooperation while preparing him for the procedure. The intervention worked because it provided immediate emotional support, gave the patient a sense of control, and reduced physiological symptoms of anxiety.

2025-07-24 06:04:51 UTC

I have been in and out of hospital my whole degree. Nurses have sometimes been the most helpful and caring and kind people aiding my recovery and sometimes have done things I have found harmful and traumatic. I find wards very distressing as an autistic individual and always loud and bright and overstimulating. One nurse would distract me from the ward while i was on RIB by getting dressing packs and helping me practice wound dressings and other nursing skills. I have a heart condition and was on cardiac monitoring and would get too stressed that i was contaminating parts and would go too tachy and have to lie down until my heart calmed down and then get to start again. i just thought that was the kindest but it was also so funny and we laughed so much. she could see my stress on the cardiac monitor and it would call me out. we also would make pillow case covers to put over the NG feed bags as i hated looking at them and found them distressing and we also would cut the face tape into love hearts or draw on the face tape to make it prettier (i would alway feel ugly with a tube in my nose and tape covering half my face). Some nurses would encourage the patients to hang out together on our ward and play uno together and eat our snacks/meals together. I am still close friends with the girls I met in hospitals. When I was really upset one day a nurse came to my bedside and started showing me pictures of her dog on her phone and was distracting me by talking about her dog and showing the pics. Another nurse got buzzfeed quizzes up for us and the girl next door and I would do the quizzes with the nurse and find out who our hunger games character was. One time I was being treated unfairly by a doctor and got upset afterwards - and I had C-diff and was on contact precautions as well and idk if the infections control deparament would be happy but - my nurse came and sat on the bathroom floor with me while I cried and told me that she doesn't agree with what happened and she said that she missed her break to stay with me and help me calm down and help me be okay again. I had really good rapport with that nurse and she was always the best. becuase I have chronic illnesses and was regularly on the same ward for most of my admissions i became almost friends with the nurses. she showed me a video of her at a party getting an ngt inserted. when i got my first ngt it was very distressing for me and a nurse stayed in the room with me to talk me through it. she said she had one inserted before and the worst part is inserting it and once its in it isnt as bad and gave me encouragement and validated that theyre really not nice. i came back to that ward a few months ago to visit a few of my friends on it while i was on prac (i have been nearly a year admission free) and the nurses saw me and ran up and gave me a big hug and we caught up and talked about life. as a patient you can really tell the difference about the nurses who care and the ones that dont. i have a lot of bad expereinces too but i am grateful for the beautiful nurses who i have had that cared and helped me so much. I would not be here today without them. and I believe my experiences make me a better nurse to my patients and I always want to be like the nurses who made a real positive difference psychologically to me.

2025-07-24 06:10:29 UTC

also i was like 20 but i was very unwell and going for surgery that my family didn't know about and i was trying to not show that i was scared but I was scared, when I was brought to theatre a nurse held my hand while i went to sleep (without me asking her to or anything) and it was very comforting

2025-07-24 06:37:01 UTC

also a nurse compromising with me was nice. i was meant to be on RIB and wasnt allowed to do much movement but i liked being independant and making my own bed and so the nurse would let me strip my bed (obviously if my obs were really bad and it wasn't safe i was not allowed to strip the bed) and then she would make it so i didn't feel so useless. Oh and I would also get to request the NGT size I preferred and would insert them into myself and remove them too and aspirate them when needed and give my meds down them which i liked and it gave me a sense of control which helped me as being in hospital you feel like you dont have much control over anything. nurses would also teach me ways to remember which colour cords go where for cardiac monitoring. and doctors would show me my xrays and explain each part to me and what they were looking at. when I had to have bgls and ketones some nurses would turn it into a game and we would try to guess it and see who came closest. As an AIN my least favourite job is showering patients because I always get water in my shoes and have soggy feet for my shift but I try to remember the times where my nurses have helped shower me or washed my hair for me when I couldn't and how grateful I felt for them and how much better I felt afterwards and I try to think of it as a privilege to be able to help patients shower the way a nurse used to help me. I just felt more human and like myself after they helped me shower.

Preventative preparation

2025-07-29 01:36:04 UTC

I had been looking after the same patient for a few days, she needed to be transferred to a bariatric bed for a daily weight to be taken. The pt did not want to sit out of bed or mobilise and expressed fear about moving to another bed. My buddy nurse explained to the patient that we would be moving her to a new bed tomorrow and why. Over the day we were able to answer any questions the patient had, and could remind them that they would be moved and what to expect. This reduced the patient's fear and made the transfer less stressful.