…although today’s not the day. Today (18 February) I had a sit-down-talk-it-out with the medical director and the visiting cardiologist/advising physician. It came about because I was still having doubts about my place in the clinic – NP versus RN – and stopped in to talk to the clinic coordinator about it. Word traveled up, and there I sat with these two docs. Oops.
I didn’t mean to go outside the chain of command, for which I apologized to the medical director afterwards; I was merely looking for some direction. Things between he and I are fine, and I’m feeling much more directed, which I will talk about. However, it’s also led to some professional flailing, which I also want to talk about.
In coming to Nepal I think I’ve taken a professional step backwards. I was feeling comfortable and confident in my work at the prison, and now I’m learning a new system, with new people, in a foreign place, in a language I mostly don’t understand… geeze, how many more hurdles could I have put in my path? Perhaps I should give myself a break, you say? Well, yes. But that’s not my nature. I am feeling inadequate.
For instance, the medical director has identified a skill set in women’s health he would like his nurses to learn from me. And as soon as the word were out of his mouth, I began to wonder if I could meet his expectations, if I have the knowledge he thinks I have. I specialized in women’s health in school. I passed a national certifying exam demonstrating competency in the subject area. My previous job was in women’s health. Anyone have some extra self-confidence I could borrow until I find mine?
So, I will be providing education for the nursing staff in the reproductive health clinic. The medical director would like for me to teach about contraception, antenatal care, and routine screening for cervical cancer. My first didactic is Wednesday at 1500; keep me in your thoughts! Even as I get more nervous, I am looking forward to this new challenge.
Analysis of this self-doubt led to thinking about the connections between self-confidence, job satisfaction, and prior generations. Let’s see if this makes as much sense on the screen as on the page. Workers of prior generations stayed in one job for their entire lives; heck, even my father, after a brief stint in the air force, has been in the same job for 30-odd years. These folks were presumably competent at their work and (hopefully) derived some satisfaction from it. They also tended to get married and have children earlier than folks nowadays. I posit that the competence and satisfaction derived from their life’s work helped them feel more confident in other aspects of their lives, therefore greasing the wheels for marriage and children. Then again, in previous generations, men were the breadwinners, so where does that leave the women?
Women were reared to have different expectations of life. They were not taught to desire a career, they were taught to desire a husband, children, and a house in the suburbs. Therefore, they were much more ready to accept these things when they came their way. Feminists would argue that society has done women a favor by freeing them from such mundane expectations. Others might argue that society has done recent generations of women a disservice by encouraging them to want more than their foremothers. Perhaps. I can understand both sides of it, and can wonder all I want if I would have been happier merely aiming for a husband and not a career, but it would be a shame to throw away all my hard-earned (and expensive!) knowledge. Plus, aspiring to be a competent nurse practitioner is easier than searching for a husband, and I get paid to do it.
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