"You had no right to stop fighting for the sick patient’s life!"
— St. Luke the Surgeon
In the spirit of the Holy Hierarch’s words, my hope for this course is to learn how to never give up on a sick patient’s life, especially since the focus of this course is on moderately ill patients. I aspire to understand the true oikonomia (economy) of caring—i.e. agape (love) as the foundation of my care, rather than being motivated merely by the need to pass this prerequisite course and move on to the next level.
However, this hope is accompanied by fears. My greatest fear is that I might do the antithesis of my hopes—to abandon the fight for my patient’s life due to the inconveniences and academic pressures. I fear that I might treat my patients not with love, but with pride, hate and condescension.
This fear is an offspring of another fear, and that is me fearing one of my course instructors due to a painful history with this teacher, which has left me deeply wounded. That day a loving nurse within me...died. I am in constant fear.
Yet, these fears must not paralyze me. Action is required to overcome what would otherwise be the spiritual death of a genuinely loving and caring student nurse. As the Holy Father John Climacus wrote, "a proud soul is the slave of fear." Therefore, I will strive to be humble and obedient so that I will not abandon my vocation of care, and to better understand the oikonomia of caring. Embracing humility will also help me realize that the deep wounds I have carried since N10 can be healed through forgiveness. Though I cannot forgive this instructor at present, this does not mean that my capacity for forgiveness is dead forever. I hope to reach a point where I can forgive, so that the fear I developed from and associate with this person will not cause me to surrender in the fight for my patient’s life.
In closing, I make a promise to learn not only the technical skills of N11 but also the virtues that are integral to the nursing profession—humility (manus, hands that are humble enough to reach out), obedience (caput, a virtue reigning our wills), and the oikonomia of caring (cor, a heart full of love). With these virtues, my fears will dissipate, and I will come to understand what it truly means to "fight for my sick patient’s life."
Fear not.