Nurses Step to the Front
In hamlets and high-tech hospitals, nurses are taking on bigger roles
For all its advances, nursing is still bedeviled by one old problem: lack of respect. When it comes to funding for nursing research, for instance, the money is a trickle. The nursing institute's budget makes up just 0.5 percent of the overall research pot at the National Institutes of Health. And according to a recent survey from VHA, a Texas-based healthcare cooperative, disrespect often takes a more direct, virulent form: abuse by doctors. Hospital nurses report vicious arguments. This toxic environment causes a breakdown in communication that can adversely affect care.
Down in Grantsville, nurse practitioner Ritchie hopes that the research that is going on will not just win more respect one day but will also help her patients with chronic illnesses. In her green cargo pants, black turtleneck (from which hangs her ever present stethoscope), and lug-soled boots, Ritchie ducks from crowded office to examining room to the "extra medicine" supply closet as country music plays on a boombox. She tells Harry Curry she'll go to Wal-Mart and buy him more of the salve he likes to rub on his dry, scaly shins. Then she tells another patient, Delberta Hickman, that it's OK to trust in Jesus to heal her diabetes but that medicine can help, too. She gives a 15-year-old girl free antibiotics and an enormous stack of condoms. "I plan to stay here," says Ritchie. "I couldn't leave my patients."
It's a simple thing really, says Uniontown's Ferguson: "A nurse always wants to make things better."
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