"A Nurse will always give us hope, an angel with a stethoscope."

-Carrie Latet, American author

I'm sure many many families have looked to my friend and former student, Kaela Ward, as an angel....in Kaela's case, an angel to help keep their babies safe and healthy. Kaela is a Neonatal Intensive Care Nurse at Inova Alexandria Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia.

What does it take to be a nurse? 

First, the education. 

Kaela, a 2010 graduate of Central Catholic High School, earned a B.S.N (that's a Bachelor of Science in Nursing) from Seton Hall University in 2014. Her training there included classroom settings (studying anatomy, physiology, psychology, organic chemistry), lab settings, and technology simulation.  A very important part of nurse training is the rotation of hands-on experiences at not just hospitals, but also community health centers, schools, clinics, and hospice care, which is specialized care for the sick, especially those who are terminally ill.

After the requirements are fulfilled and even after a degree is awarded, the nurse must still pass the NCLEX (National Council Licensure Examination.) This is a difficult exam; many nurses take review classes just to prepare! Many questions are situational, presenting possible scenarios with patients and their symptoms and medical histories.  One can take the test up to 8 times in one year until he or she passes---Kaela aced it the first time !

Kaela worked on a Medical Surgical Unit at Inova Hospital for ten months before the position opened at the NICU. After a 12 week orientation program there (she also had a 12 week orientation at the Medical Surgical Unit) she was ready to take care of those babies!

Ward

Chat Conversation StarWhat is Kaela's day like at the NICU? (Or to be accurate, her 12 hour shift: Kaela works 3

  

(Of course this is not Kaela--Santa came to the NICU-Picture courtesy of Inova's Facebook page)

Kaela works 3 12 hour shifts 3 days a week.

As I was about to describe Kaela's responsibilities, I received this message  from her:War

...Going back to the "what my job entails/what I do with the babies" I feel

like the picture I painted was a very basic one as far as hands on cares are

concerned and was the simplest way to explain it or what I do with our

healthiest babies. However so much more goes into it and changes from one

baby to another and the sicker the baby the more time you will spend with  

them (there is no set time for how long a care should take). It's so important to

know the preemies and micro preemies (our smallest of the smallest...the  24

and 25 weekers) and sometimes even full term babies often need some type of

respiratory support because their lungs are not properly developed. These

include high flow cannulas (think of an adult on oxygen) CPAP and SiPAP (these

deliver more pressure into the lungs to keep the alveoli [small grape like sacs

inside the lungs where CO2 and oxygen are exchanged] open) and

tubes also known as endotracheal tubes and ventilators which is the highest

level of respiratory support and also the most invasive. The babies also often

have IVs or umbilical lines (basically an IV that goes through the vein of the

umbilical cord) to receive IV nutrition when they are too small or too new to "eat"

(they can get fed through a feeding tube if they are too young to take a bottle

and we still consider this eating). We give lots of medications, draw blood for lab work and check blood sugars, assist with x-rays, collaborate with the doctors

and therapists and do a lot of teaching with the parents. And there is a lot of

charting to do. Documentation is so so so important as a nurse and can take up

a good chunk of our shift! I just want to make sure people understand that even

though it's babies that I do work with tiny humans who often needed way longer

to cook and because they are so early they are sick and fragile and can be fine

one minute and in a sense needing resuscitation the next. It's not always sitting

in rocking chairs and bottle feeding though that is part of that job. Hopefully that

gives you a little more of the nitty gritty of my job and not just the rainbows and

butterflies part. Ward

A perspective on how tiny these babies can be

CAN YOU TELL THIS YOUNG WOMAN LOVES HER JOB?

Her reference to "hands on care" was her explanation of each nurse being responsible for 2-3 babies, providing basic care such as taking vital signs, a head-to-toe assessment, diaper changes and feeding. To me, this alone would have filled up 12 hours for 3 babies!!!! NICU nurses prove to be the angels mentioned above.

The rewards of this job are obvious: seeing tiny babies who get to go home with their parents. Since her unit can support up to 23 babies at a time, the crying (can we say screaming?) might be a little unnerving, but it doesn't knock off the halo of a caring nurse like Kaela Ward.

*******************************************************************************BBC Students take note: A nursing career (which is not, of course, confined to females), includes many areas such as:
Emergency Room Nurse
Pediatric Nurse
Oncologist Nurse
Geriatrics Nurse (elder care)
Burn Unit Nurse
School Nurse
Hospice Care
Labor and Delivery
Home Care
Surgical Nurse
Nurse Recruiter
Nurses can become teachers too :)

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