*sigh*

Well, the summer semester is officially over as of Friday!!! Woohoo!!! I ended up with a "B" in my class which I am pretty proud of. I think a "B" in nursing school is acceptable. I could probably get "As" but I am not willing to put in that much time and effort. That may sound bad, but it's true. I don't think that grades necessarily reflect my ability as a nurse, they're just grades. I do think that you have to have a background or a base knowledge of health and disease to be a good and/or effective nurse. However, I know that you can never fully understand the human body and/or disease. I took "Mental Health" this summer and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I learned more about myself than I thought possible. Some of it was good, some of it was not but all of it was helpful. I learned about things that really made me sad, diseases that have no cure and can't be controlled, even with medications. I am not necessarily just a proponent of drugs, I think that there are other ways to treat conditions but I also understand that some conditions just require medication. This is the way I think about it: I don't take a pill every time that my head hurts but if I need a pill, then I will take it. If I have had a headache all day, tried everything else, then I'll take ibuprofen usually. I don't like to take medication but I do take heartburn pills on a regular basis. I wish I didn't have to but they're the only pills that control my heartburn. I do not want to ever have to take something such as cholesterol medication or antidepressants. I don't want to have the side effects of these medications, however, if I needed them, then I would take them. I am totally on board for trying other methods than medications prior to taking medications. If taking fish oil controls your cholesterol along with diet and exercise, then by all means, take it. If your cholesterol remains uncontrolled though, why not try cholesterol medication? Is that really any more dangerous than getting in your car and driving to work? I don't think so. Everyone takes risks in their daily lives and yet, medication and the medical profession in general, when they reveal a treatment that is ineffective or side effects of medication, they are essentially blackballed. It really frustrates me. Medical professionals are people too, they make mistakes, unfortunately, those mistakes can cost people their lives but why are they more culpable than someone else? Engineers have peoples lives in their hands every day too as they build bridges and buildings and yet, they are not mistrusted and looked at as people who are just trying to make money and people be damned. I am not saying that there are not sorry people in the medical profession, there are but are they any worse than people in any other profession? What makes the medical profession so much worse than all the others? Most people don't go into the medical profession because they want to make money, this is an extremely tough profession that is very physically, socially and emotionally demanding. Most of us that go into this profession want to help people, all people. Yes, we have biases, prejudices and judgments about certain people and situations but we're people too. Why are we not afforded the same rights as every other person when it comes to that? I admit, I am judgmental about certain things but if I were treating a patient who had made a decision that I disagreed with, I would treat them the same way that I would treat my mother. I don't have to agree with what they have done but at the heart of the matter, they are people and deserve to be treated as people. I would even extend this courtesy to prisoners. I don't agree with the prisoners choices or with people who choose to do drugs but I have never been in their shoes. I don't know for sure that I might not have made the same decisions that they made had I been walking at their shoes when they made their decision. I would like to think that I wouldn't kill someone or harm someone or steal something or do drugs but the reality is, I've never been in a situation that would call for that. I have never been forced to choose between my life and someone else's and I can assure you that in a situation where it's my life or someone else's, I choose me. Tell me that you wouldn't do the same. I know that you would, instinctively, we choose ourselves over others, especially when it's our life. Now, if I had a child and I had to choose between myself and my child, I would choose my child, most likely...but it's all circumstantial so I can't say with 100% certainty that I would choose me or the child. Situations force us to make decisions under duress and sometimes we make the wrong choice but there are chemicals in our bodies that cause us to make choices that we might not normally make. I don't say all of that to say that I am not responsible for the choices I make, I am definitely responsible for my choices. If I choose to take someone's life, then I have to take responsibility for that action, period. Now, if they are trying to kill me or my family and I choose to kill them instead, then it's self-defense but I still took that person's life. I still have to live with my decision to take their life and pay the consequences for it. I don't know that prison is the right punishment but then again, I did take a life so that will probably be up to a jury. I feel like medicine is the same way. First of all, it is not an exact science. I wish that it was, I wish that I could just wave a magic wand and cure disease but I can't, I don't have that capability. I can help restore people to their health but if I give you a medication that has unpleasant side effects then that makes me a bad person. Why? I don't understand. I am trying to help you, I am trying to restore your health or keep you alive but I'm the bad guy for trying to help you. I hate that stigma, I do, I feel that it's unwarranted. My underlying motive is to help so why does that make me a bad person?