No one is 'just' a nurse. Just ask Julia Baird.

The following is an edited extract from Bright Shining: How Grace Changes Everything by Julia Baird (published by 4th Estate, HarperCollins).

Nurses have brought me immense comfort in the past few years.

Most of us who frequent hospitals can quickly tell the difference between a competent, caring nurse and an indifferent one (and the vast majority, in my experience, are the former). Little things give it away. Like one nurse bringing me a single ice-chip when I was not allowed to let anything pass my lips. Or another letting me sleep in the middle of a hubbub. One who looked at me without judgment when my body was malfunctioning. Another who spoke soothingly when I quietly despaired about my ability to heal and work again. A nurse who, when I started crying one day after my children visited because I was missing them so much, grabbed my arm, yelling, ‘You are okay! You are a strong and intelligent woman! Just like David Marr!’ — and I burst out laughing at this reference to my fellow writer and then colleague.

When in pain, I am inordinately grateful for both expertise and small kindnesses: an extra heated blanket tucked in over exposed toes, laughter at one of my bad jokes, an eye trained to see pain when I’m too spent to complain.

Listen to Julia Baird speak to Mia Freedman on Mamamia's No Filter podcast. Post continues after audio.

This is part of the reason I am always astonished when doctors treat nurses with disregard, or people patronise them. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine, Caitlin Brassington, was at her local shops in her scrubs after a long day at work and bumped into a friend, who said she had not realised Caitlin was ‘just a nurse’. That morning Caitlin had left three kids asleep in the hands of a babysitter who would get them to school and daycare so that she could go and do her nursing work. She came home that night and posted the following message on Facebook:

I have helped babies into the world, many of whom needed assistance to take their first breath, and yet I am just a nurse.

I have held patients’ hands and ensured their dignity while they take their last breath, and yet I am just a nurse.

I have counselled grieving parents after the loss of a child, and yet I am just a nurse.

I have performed CPR on patients and brought them back to life, and yet I am just a nurse.

I can auscultate every lung field on a newborn and assess which field may have a decreased air entry, and yet I am just a nurse.

I can educate patients, carers, junior nurses and junior doctors on disease states, prognoses and treatment plans, and yet I am just a nurse.

I have been a lecturer in a school of medicine, teaching medical students how to perform a systematic physical examination of a patient, and yet I am just a nurse.

I am my patients’ advocate in a health system that does not always put my patients’ best interests first, and yet I am just a nurse.

I can take blood, cannulate, and suture a wound, and yet I am just a nurse.

I can manage a cardiac arrest in a newborn, a child or an adult, and yet I am just a nurse.

I can tell you the dosage of adrenaline or amiodarone based on weight that your child may need to bring them back to life, and yet I am just a nurse.

I provide comfort, compassion, emotional and social support to patients and their families in their darkest times, and yet I am just a nurse.

I have worked twelve-hour shifts without a toilet break or a cup of coffee, to ensure that the best possible care is given to my patient, and yet I am just a nurse.

I have been screamed at, vomited on and urinated on, but I will still come to work and do my job, and yet I am just a nurse.

I have the experience, knowledge and competence that has saved and will continue to save people’s lives, and yet I am just a nurse.

So yes, lovely acquaintance in the corner store, if I am ‘just a nurse’, then I am ridiculously proud to be one!

Feature Image: Getty.

Bright Shining: How Grace Changes Everything by Julia Baird (published by 4th Estate, HarperCollins) is out now.