Knowing what to say:
Creative ways to talk to young people about nursing
by Anna M. Herbst
I recently asked a group of energetic college-bound students if they were considering a career in nursing. The response was a polite but resounding “No.” New technology and diverse opportunities have piqued children’s curiosity. How will our nation produce more than a million new nurses to care for an aging population when young people are not exploring traditional service careers?
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| Anna Herbst |
Part of the answer may be in the collective power of individual nurses interacting with children they routinely encounter. Children’s knowledge and views of nursing can be positively impacted when we know what to say and how to say it.
As a nurse and mother of five lively children, I have had opportunities to observe and relate to people of all ages. Using concrete themes and strategies based on developmental age, we can connect children’s interests and values to accurate, appealing portrayals of nursing.
The ideas presented here are rooted in my own experience and can be used in formal settings such as school-sponsored career days or, informally, in spontaneous conversation. The goal is to present a positive, appealing and accurate picture of nursing. In this way, young people will consider nursing as a career option based on reality rather than preconceived notions.
Kindergarten to Grade 2
This is a busy group! They expend enormous amounts of energy in moving, making and playing. Boys and girls use imagination to mimic superheroes and parenting skills. To connect with these children, create diverse but basic images of nurses helping people. Children will recreate these images in spontaneous play.
Read storybooks aloud. I recommend Do You Know a Nurse? (2004), published by George Mason University. Allow children to manipulate cool tools nurses use to help people—stethoscopes, penlights, bandages and tape, identification badges and the like. If you get the chance to speak to a group, wear a colorful scrub jacket, hang a stethoscope around your neck and have fun. (See Addendum A: Teacher needs a nurse!)
Grades 3 to 5
Still industrious, these children have a more developed sense of humor and are interested in particular school subjects. They now play in groups and have begun to mirror each other’s behavior. Boy groups engage girl groups, and all seem to have interest in the human body. To interact with these children, help them make the connection between their current science knowledge and nursing knowledge. This adds substance to their idea of nursing without conjuring up images of stereotypical roles. Be prepared; this age group asks questions about the body. (See Addendum B: Five things a nurse needs to know about your fingernails!)
Grades 6 to 9
Middle-schoolers are discovering who they are and how they fit into different groups. They are heavily influenced by peers and media heroes and still have a rich capacity for fantasy. Students in middle school are picturing themselves in different adult roles. Willing to experiment, these young people have discovered new means of self-expression in clothing, extreme sports and text messaging. To convey a positive image of nursing to this group, offer engaging examples of real-life nurse role models. Relay your own exciting stories. Inspire students to picture themselves in nursing roles. (See Addendum C: Extreme nursing careers.)
Grades 10 to 12
In high school, young people’s identity reference point is shifting from peer group to self. Taking inventory of their own interests and aptitudes, they consider educational, vocational and financial futures. We know adults often change careers in mid-professional life. Emphasizing the importance of job satisfaction is an easy way to engage this group.
We can help young people remain open to service careers by connecting an individual’s personal traits and values—caring about another’s well-being, for example—with success and satisfaction in a nursing career. You may need to lead a student to self-revelation about what is important to them.
Reflect on your own personal traits and straight-talk the pieces of nursing that give you the most satisfaction. Share that you earn enough salary to live comfortably. Once students are aware of personal qualities, offer concrete means—opportunities to volunteer, for example— to further explore these attributes. (See Addendum D: Explore your caring side.) Many students are actually looking for ways to fulfill community service requirements.
Developmental age does not always match a child’s chronological age. Know your audience and adapt these strategies to fit the interest and maturity of the children in your life. If you enlighten even one mind, you have contributed to the vitality of our noble profession.
Addendum A: Teacher needs a nurse!
Goal
Children see how a nurse can help people.
Share the script with the teacher beforehand to obtain his or her cooperation.
Grab attention
Nurse to class: Nurses care about people. I want to show you some things a nurse does. Let’s pretend your teacher is dripping with sweat (create the mental picture: wet clothes, wet hair, red face).
Make the point
To teacher: “Have you been running around on the playground? Climbing? Swinging? Jumping?” (Teacher nods) “I thought so. How do you feel?”
Teacher: “Funny.”
Nurse: “Will you let me look in your mouth?” (Teacher opens mouth; nurse looks with penlight.) “Outside your skin is wet, but inside your mouth is dry. Would you like a drink of water?”
Teacher: “I’d rather have a Popsicle.”
Nurse: “How’s your breathing?”
Teacher: “OK.”
Nurse: “I’m going to listen to the air moving in and out of your lungs. This is a stethoscope. It helps me hear what’s happening inside your body.” (Nurse listens to posterior lungs through teacher’s clothing. Mimicking breath sounds, nurse tells children what she hears). “Very good. Very clear.”
Nurse now listens to teacher’s heart with stethoscope and announces: “It’s racing, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub. It’s a good thing you are resting. You need to keep resting.”
Nurse listens to teacher’s tummy with stethoscope and announces: “It’s growling! Did you eat your lunch?”
Teacher: “No, I wanted to go out and play!”
Nurse: “Let’s get your lunch so you can eat while you’re resting.”
Nurse: “How do you feel now?”
Teacher: “Fine, thank you, nurse.”
Return to purpose
Nurse to class: “Can anyone tell me something a nurse does to help people?”
Presentation tips: You can make a pretend stethoscope with an empty role of toilet paper! It’s best if you now share a box of Popsicles with the class.
Addendum B: Five things a nurse needs to know about your fingernails!
Goal
Expand children’s science knowledge with nursing knowledge.
Grab attention
Nurse to class: Nurses know a lot about the human body. Just like a scientist, nurses learn about your health by making observations. For instance, did you know a nurse can often tell what you’re eating or how well your heart and lungs are working by looking at your fingernails?
Make the point
1. Are they clean?
Dirt carries germs—tiny living cells. If these germs get inside your body, they can grow and cause infection! Your fingernails can place germs inside your body. Where do you put your fingers? In your mouth? Ears? Nose? Do you ever scratch your skin or rub your eyes?
When you have some kinds of infection, nurses check for fingernail dirt to see if that’s how infection is spreading.
2. What color are they? (Not the polish!)
Fingernails let nurses see what circulating blood looks like under the skin.
Pink nail beds mean oxygen you breathe into your lungs can pass into tiny blood vessels and be pumped by the heart to the tips of your fingers.
Blue nail beds may mean there is not enough oxygen circulating in your fingers because of cold, injury or something wrong in your heart or lungs.
3. How smooth are they?
Deep horizontal ridges may mean your nail stopped growing for a time when it was injured or when you were very sick.
Deep vertical ridges may mean you don’t eat enough food containing iron. Do you eat dark green vegetables, red meat or shellfish?
4. What shape are they?
Spoon-shaped nails usually mean you haven’t had enough iron in your body for a while.
Club-shaped nails (picture the spoon turned over) mean you have not had enough circulating oxygen for a long time, perhaps years.
5. How many hangnails?
A hangnail is a piece of torn cuticle. When cuticles are dry or broken, your skin may be open. This puts you at risk for infection.
Lots of hangnails may mean your hands are too dry.
Return to purpose
Remember, a nurse is a scientific investigator. One way a nurse gathers clues about your health is by observing your body, even your fingernails.
Addendum C: Extreme nursing careers
Goal Offer contemporary, nonstereotypical nurse role models to broaden students’ perspective of nursing.
Grab attention
Nurse to class: Can anyone name a job a nurse might have? I want to tell you about real-life nurses who work in ways and places you may not be familiar with.
Make the point
Ever hear of forensic nursing? The word “forensic” usually means legal proceedings related to crime detection. Forensic nurses provide compassionate care for victims of a violent crime in a way that protects and preserves evidence of the crime. Police investigators and medical examiners use the evidence as clues to solve the crime. Forensic nurses receive special training—how to cut away a gunshot victim’s clothes, for example. They even participate in court cases. Forensic nurses work in emergency rooms, correctional facilities and law enforcement agencies. Colleen O’Brien is a nurse in Wisconsin and president of Shamrock Healthcare. In 2003, she received an award for her efforts to help sexual assault victims. She started the first Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program in Madison, Wisconsin, and trained more than 1,000 health care providers in compassionate forensic care for rape victims.
Do you know who Brigadier General William Bester is? He is a nurse anesthetist—the person who puts you to sleep in the operating room and keeps you breathing—and former chief of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. A Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program paid him to go to college! He worked all over the world taking care of troops in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Once he helped set up, in 24 hours, a hospital in Hungary amidst winter cold and snow! He has held command positions and won numerous medals for service and achievement. He even earned the Parachutist Badge. Now retired, he teaches in a nursing school in Texas. Recently, he volunteered with Project Hope to lead a nursing team on the U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Mercy. The mission? To care for tsunami victims in Indonesia.
How about Janice Hudson? Author of Trauma Junkie (2001), she’s an emergency flight nurse from California who flew with a helicopter rescue program during the 1990s. Flight nurses are specially trained to take care of the sickest or most critically injured patients. Ms. Hudson tells compelling stories about rescue missions, such as the time her team helped a rock climber who fell 100 feet and broke his back. She climbed down to him with her trauma bag but had no way to get him off the ledge. Luckily, the Coast Guard’s Sikorsky—a huge helicopter with a drop-wire rescue bed—was nearby. It picked up the patient and then picked up the nurse! Ms. Hudson was dangling a hundred feet in the air while being pulled into the helicopter to care for her patient.
Return to purpose
There are many different job opportunities in nursing. What adventure appeals to you? I’ll bet it needs a nurse!
Addendum D: Explore your caring side!
Goal
Inspire students to personally consider their caring attributes.
Grab attention
Nurse to class: All of you are good people. You intend to obey the law, plan to work to earn a living, feel pride in your accomplishments and respect your neighbor. Many of you really care about your neighbor and genuinely like people. Some of you cannot help making eye contact or smiling at a person walking toward you. You see a person juggling packages and you instinctively hold the door. You would assist an older person struggling with groceries, or stop and help a child who has lost a parent in a department store.
Does that sound like you? If so, you are probably a person who is sensitive to other people’s needs and are, no doubt, very caring. You feel good when you help people. This is an attribute to be treasured. You owe it to yourself to explore this part of you, especially when you are making decisions about your future.
Make the point
Half your waking adult life is spent at work. If you want to experience satisfaction, choose work that makes you happy. Many times, people spend money and effort training for careers they don’t actually enjoy. Wouldn’t it be nice to choose right the first time? Don’t ignore your caring side; explore it! Look for opportunities right now that will help you investigate how important this is.
Here are some structured ways to explore your caring side, and they are impressive on any college application. (Nurses outside the United States can modify this list to fit what’s available in their geographic region.)
Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP): This national program helps teens provide social interaction and activities to prevent delirium in older people.
Hospice: Interact with terminally ill patients and their families.
Ronald McDonald House: Interact with families of terminally ill children.
Community Action Teams (CAT): This American Red Cross program engages teens in community service.
Special Olympics: This international program matches volunteers’ interests, talents and availability with opportunities in competitive sports for the intellectually disabled.
Return to purpose
Do these programs appeal to you? This is the time to discover whether caring activities feel like work or just feel good. RNL
Anna M. Herbst, RN, MSN, CNE, clinical instructor for Inova Learning Network at Inova Fair Oaks Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia, USA, is a resident of Springfield, Virginia.
References:
George Mason University Advanced Clinical Nursing Students. (2004). Do you know a nurse? Fairfax, VA: George Mason University.
Hudson, J. (2001). Trauma junkie: Memoirs of an emergency flight nurse. Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books Ltd.
