Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current, April 26, 2023, Page 8, Image 8

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    EIGHT - Heppner Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon Wednesday, April 26, 2023
In your community: Nurses provide care and compassion
-Continued from PAGE ONE
and night shifts. Greenup
says larger hospitals have
day, mid and night shifts,
but 12 hours is the industry
standard.
Greenup mostly works
the day shift at PMH, but
she says everyone is re-
quired to cover sick calls,
so she occasionally works
the night shift when another
nurse has to call in sick.
The entire Morrow
County Health District has
15 full-time nurses on staff,
including one nurse each at
the Heppner and Boardman
clinics and four nurses in
home health and hospice.
At the hospital, two nurses
are on duty at once, along
with two aides.
Greenup says a lot of
the nursing schedule is also
comprised of PRN nurses.
PRN is an acronym for the
Latin term “pro re nata,”
which means “as the situ-
ation demands,” or simply,
“as needed.” So, a PRN
is a registered nurse who
works as a temporary or
short-term employee, often
traveling to other areas to
work. Right now, Greenup
says, PMH has nurses that
travel in from Boise and
The Dalles, among other
places.
“And a lot of nurses
pick up shifts at other hos-
pitals,” she adds. “It’s just
the way we’re wired.”
And nurses definitely
have to be wired a certain
way to do what they do.
“We see all walks of
life, all stages of life,” Gree-
nup says. “There’s so many
avenues you can go in nurs-
ing, and each one is fitting
for some personality type,
but you definitely have to
be a people person.”
She does add that she
hasn’t always been such a
people person.
“Nursing school chang-
Registered nurse Kathleen Greenup pauses for a moment
at the Pioneer Memorial Hospital nurses’ station. -Photo by
Andrea Di Salvo
es you,” she says. “You
train your mind to think a
certain way. You’d almost
have to resist the change to
not be intrigued by people
after nursing school.”
Greenup says she thinks
people generally have a
good idea of what nurses
do—everyone, at some
point in their lives, has had
contact with a nurse. How-
ever, they may not realize
what it’s like to be a nurse
at a critical access hospital
like Pioneer Memorial.
“Because we’re such a
small hospital, people may
think we’re not that busy,”
she says. “We don’t see
the number of patients that
larger hospitals see, but the
diversity of patients is so
much broader.”
“It’s definitely more
than giving shots,” she
adds.
Some of the tools of
the nursing trade or well-
known, while others aren’t
as noticeable. Along with
the trademark stethoscope,
Greenup carries trauma
shears, pen, radio, flushes,
alcohol wipes, tape and
her cell phone, which has
nursing apps to help her
with things like drug cal-
culations.
Saline flushes have
multiple uses, everything
from cleaning spills to rins-
ing eyes to flushing out
IVs. Trauma shears, she
says, are extremely sharp
scissors that are used to cut
dressings, or even clothing
if needed.
“When an emergent
patient comes in, we don’t
waste time trying to gen-
tly undress them,” she
explains. “We cut their
clothes.”
Another difference
working in a rural critical
access hospital, she says,
is that the doctor is not
necessarily in the hospital
when an emergency hap-
pens. Doctors are nearby
and can—and are—on the
scene quickly, but there are
moments when the nurs-
es need to act even more
quickly.
“We have to work well
together and know our doc-
tors, and our doctors have to
know the nurses,” she says,
adding that the hospital has
protocols the nurses can
work from for common
emergency situations such
as heart attack, stroke or ab-
dominal pain. “That allows
us to work quickly before
the doctor even arrives.”
She also says that fron-
tier hospitals like PMH lack
some of the resources that
larger organizations have,
such as entire departments
with dedicated respiratory
consultants, IV experts and
on-site pharmacists.
“We do it all,” she says.
“We don’t have people
we can call in. We’re the
people.”
That makes teamwork
an important part of life at
Pioneer Memorial.
“Medicine is a team
sport. It wasn’t always like
that,” she says, adding that
it used to be more doc-
tor-drive with a “captain
of the ship” kind of atmo-
sphere. Here, she says, the
doctors are phenomenal
and are good at asking for
nurse input. “Patients are
getting much better care,
because nurses are the ones
spending 12 hours a day
with them. They know ev-
erything about them—they
know about their fami-
lies, they know if someone
doesn’t like ice in their
water.”
“It’s nice to be included
in the big picture,” she says.
When asked if the job
is stressful, Greenup pauses
and then says, “I think that
depends on who you ask.
For me it’s not.”
She does say that man-
aging stress is important,
which means having coping
skills, good family support
and being able to rely on the
medical team.
“It’s all super import-
ant,” she says.
“One of the things the
health district does really
well is that, any time we
have an event that’s high
stress, there’s always a de-
brief,” she adds. Everyone
is included, and MCHD has
a mental health professional
on staff who is always avail-
able to help.
“Debrief is super im-
portant with those stressors
so you don’t carry them
around with you,” she says.
“You can move on with
your life and be a wife, a
mom, a friend.”
Greenup says that, in
nursing, it’s often the small
things that make the biggest
impact, both for the nurses
and for the patients. She
remembers family members
of patients who took the
time to thank her on what
was likely the worst day of
their lives.
“You don’t get that ev-
erywhere, but you definitely
get that here at home. The
littlest things make the big-
gest difference when you’re
a nurse,” says Greenup.
She also shares that
she owns a pair of yellow
scrubs, which are among
her favorites. She recalls a
day she was wearing those
scrubs when she walked
into a patient’s room and
asked how she was.
“She (the patient) said,
‘I knew today was going to
be a terrible day, but then
you walked in with those
yellow scrubs,’” says Gree-
nup. “It’s the little things
that add up to be the big
things.”
“Nursing is a pretty
blessed field. We just need
more of us,” she concludes.
“There hasn’t been a single
day in my entire life that I
haven’t wanted to come to
work.”