New Years Resolutions~2023

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????The global pandemic affected all of us in varying degrees, but nurses were among the professions who were most affected. As one of the nurses who went through some of the chaos, I like many others began to question my life’s meaning as well as impact of what I was doing.

????In the beginning, Covid reminded me of the other scary viruses that we had all become accustomed to. I remember starting my career in the 90’s on an Oncology floor thinking I was to care for old people with cancer. Never being sick, I was a bit of a germophobe. It turned out that the cancer floor was actually and AIDS floor and 90% of the cancer patients at the time were HIV positive younger men. As a new nurse, I was terrified that I would catch the HIV virus especially when I had to “start IV’s and do blood draws”. Being a big guy with big clumsy hands, it did not take me very long before I stuck myself with a bloody needle. Thankfully, I was fine and did not get any virus, but I was fired shortly after that because of my mistake.

????Since that time, I have had multi-hospital experience working in a trauma ICU, emergency room, telemetry, gastroenterology, and interventional radiology. Viruses began to become a part of the many risks of being a nurse and I grew used to it. The last big deal virus that I remember preparing for was Ebola. That was a scary one! We had to learn how to put on and take off (Don and Doff) the plastic gowns and hood without exposing yourself or your coworkers. It is not an effortless process and when inside, it is quite claustrophobic. Luckily, Ebola did not spread like we thought it could. That had the potential of making the coronavirus look like ?child’s play.

??????In the beginning of 2020, I was told about another virus called the Corona virus. It seemed like no one in my hospital was taking it very seriously because well, we were healthcare professionals and “it was not our first rodeo..” I started to get concerned when I began doing my own research. I discovered that the virus was so small, it was smaller than even the holes in the N95 masks. I followed the data in China and found that the highest death rates were people about my age. I voiced my concerns to management after they wanted to “float me to the Covid tent” and was told that “It is just like the (seasonal) flu.” so, there was “nothing to worry about.” Management is supposed to guide and not cause panic, which is understood but there was no guide for this. The rules kept changing and the goalposts kept moving. After a while, nothing made much sense.

?????We were told that it was “like the flu” but the death rates were obviously much higher. We were told that Covid was “contact” isolation which means it is not in the air but then were told that it was aerosolized. And then when we ran out of N95 masks, we were told again that it is “contact” again. We were told that we had enough N95 masks and that they should not be reused but when we ran low, we were told to take a marker and reuse them for weeks at a time. We were told that we were “hero’s” but a year later, we were told that the hospital lost too much money and we had to work even harder to catch up. Probably what hurt even more was when we were told by the public that what we did was all a big “hoax’. I could go on and on, but you get the point.

????Now we have a new term floating around called “moral injury..” As nurses, we have this idealistic idea that we can help other people in a small way because we want to help make the world a better place. If Iinsanity (or stupidity) is doing the same thing and expecting the same result, then we must do something different. This can be our chance to have the voice of change.

???This is compatible with architecture. I also am also a licensed architect, and I obtained my architectural registration in California in 2004. Nurses want to change the world on a patient-to-patient micro level. Architects want to change the world on a macro or even global scale. It seems time that we use this experience to remake healthcare together. With over 4 million nurses in this country, it should be an easy task.

????My value as well is to combine these two unlikely professions because I speak both languages. A synergistic change needs to happen before another pandemic rolls past. Next time we should be ready. We can do it if we stop waiting for the managers and others to do it for us. I encourage any and all nurses to reach out with any creative ideas that could help us for the next time. We need more than a doctor’s medical prescription for this problem. We need a nurse’s prescription as well. I made a website forum so that we may all gain from our ideas, and I will post your ideas so that you may be heard. https://rnsrx.com.?I also encourage hospital management to contact us at dsk architects so we can help you and improve your next project. Let’s make some new years resolutions together!

Thank you,

Michael Maclaren RN, AIA