ADVENTURES IN NURSING

MRS. B-1

We had two classroom instructors and Mrs. B-1 was my absolute favorite, hands down.  She was smart.  She was organized.  She was political.  She was no nonsense.  She was outrageous.

She strode into class each day determined to pound some necessary knowledge into our brains come hell or high water.  She was relentless.  On the days when we would review the components and functions of a certain organ or system, she would have each of us, one by one, explain from start to finish like an assembly line.  There was no stalling or heming or hawing.  If you didn’t spew the answer within a few seconds, she moved on to the next person.  She was tough but we loved her.

She above all of our instructors encouraged ... practically demanded ... that on that bright shining day when we finally became nurses, we should immediately start working to change the nursing profession for the better.  We were so clueless, or at least I was.  I had no idea the profession needed changing.  FYI:  It does.

Before our first-year clinicals began, it was necessary that we learn how to give an IM injection.  We went through every orange in the state of Florida learning the techniques.  Okay, maybe it wasn’t EVERY orange, but pretty damn close.  I felt supremely confident on the day we were to take procedure test.  Mrs. B-1 had us all line up in the clinical classroom and one by one, we swabbed either the arm or the derriere of the big rubber humanoid lying in the bed.  I was thankful that I was near the end of the line and able to watch the other students working their magic.  “Piece of cake,” I thought.  If they could do it, then so could I.

At last, it was my turn.  I swabbed the proper area on the upper arm.  I picked up the syringe loaded with water.  I held it like a dart and inserted it into the previously-swabbed spot.  I pushed the plunger, and withdrew the syringe.  I capped the needle.  (We did that back then.)  There!  I had done it!  Whew! 

I was celebrating prematurely, unfortunately.  Mrs. B-1 looked at me and asked question one.  “How did you know where to shoot?”  I stammered something to the effect that I shot where I swabbed.  Question two:  “How do you know that’s where you swabbed?”  I was confused.  Was she not standing right there when I swabbed?  My brain was racing as I stood there trying to look confident.  “What was she talking about?”  She soon let me know.  I had unknowingly placed the alcohol swab on the bed beside the mannequin.  Ruh roh.  I should have left it in place on the upper arm.  Such a tiny mistake, but enough for me to flunk my injection test.  Mrs. B-1 was not cutting us any slack.  I grudgingly respected that but I was still devastated.

As my rotten luck would have it, B-1 was my instructor for first-year clinicals.  On our very first day in the nursing home, she watched closely as we practiced our glucose testing skills on each other.  As my rotten luck would again have it, we were an uneven number of students and I was required to test her blood sugar.  Luckily, I must have done it properly because she sent me on my way out to the floor, but that didn’t change the fact that it was 7:15 and I was already drenched in sweat.  This nursing stuff was nerve-wracking as hell.

My very favorite memory of B-1 was during our study of the female reproductive system.  On the day she was explaining all about the cervix, she informed us of how we could locate our own cervix, with the aid of a mirror, and encouraged us all to do so that night.  Umm ... I was probably not going to do that.  If I were curious enough, I would simply take another look at the pictures in my textbook.  That was good enough for me.

The next morning, she bustled into class, opened her book, looked at us all sitting there expectantly and stated, “Well, I’m sure you all went home last night and located your cervix, right?”  After several seconds of shocked silence, we all burst out laughing hysterically.  Who would have thought it?  Normally serious, business-like Mrs. B-1 had a wicked sense of humor.  That may have been our first hint that there is no modesty in the nursing profession.

Mrs. B-1 was my conscience after I began working as a nurse.  I often asked myself, “What would Mrs. B-1 do in this situation?”  I tried to live up to her standards, but they were tough ones.  I’m not sure I accomplished it very often, but I’d be proud to say that I was even half the nurse she was.  She inspired us all.