Continuity of Care

During my interview for my current position, one of the questions asked of me was what do I see as a drawback of being a nurse. There were a couple of things that came to mind, but the one I gave as my answer was that in providing care to maternity patients as a nurse (compared to being a doula), there is limited continuity of care. After a nurse's shift, she leaves. She doesn't build a relationship with the patient prior to or after delivery and isn't even guaranteed to be present for the entire birth and recovery.

This fact was pronounced to me this week. I'm now working on labor skills and I spent my whole 12 hour shift with this one couple - One on one nursing - Built a relationship with them, helped them through hours of labor. At the end of my shift, I had reported off to the next nurse and was going back in to say good-bye to the couple when she reported a change, so she was checked again... She was ready to push! And, I was leaving.

I've been to many births, so it wasn't that I felt bad over the missed experience for myself, but this couple who began to build a trusting relationship has to start out all over with a new nurse at a pivotal point in their birth process. I could have stayed longer to be a support to her, but honestly my feet were aching and my body tired after two straight days of 12 hour shifts. Plus there was no way to foresee how long she was going to have to push, etc. This job is truly not meant to be worked more than 12 hours, I don't believe.

While our hospital tries to address the continuity of care issues by having most of their staff work 12 hour shifts and assigning nurses to the same patients day after day, if possible, the issue remains.