What sort of teaching is done in your nursing role?
I currently work in Same Day Surgery and Post-Anesthesia Care Unit. The teaching that I do most of consists of controlling post-op pain. There are varying degrees of patients who either want to manage their pain with narcotics and understand that it is ok to take them or patients who do not want anything to control their pain because they fear addiction. It seems to me I spend a lot of time discussing pain medicine and when it is appropriate to take pain medicine and when the patient should begin to wean themselves off. Doctors don't do a very good job of educating patients regarding this, they simply write out the prescription for what the patient wants and walk away. As I have worked in this role for 2 years now I have seen a lot of physicians prescribe a considerable amount of pain medication and in my opinion I think they do it so they won't get phone calls for more in the middle of the night, on a weekend, or when they are busy in clinic. Now that I have been on that soap box I will get off and discuss some other aspects of teaching, I teach about caring for extremities after orthopedic surgery, post-op care after general surgeries like gallbladders and hernia repairs, gynecology procedures, and all aspects of ENT surgeries.
Is there any nursing role that does not involve teaching in some manner? I would definately say no, no matter what role a nurse is in you are always teaching. This may be in mentoring, administrative, floor nursing, surgery, ICU, etc. Nurses are always caring for someone and teaching, its ingrained in us, we even teach when we are not at work.
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