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Everywhere I appear, there is some reminder of the approaching election. (There's a job I will not be signing up for!) But then it struck me-sometimes, getting a nurse is like becoming President.Link No.Air Force One will not be stopping by this morning to deliver you into function. The odds are that you don't have a detachment of Secret Service personnel guarding you all around the clock. There isn't a brass band that plays "Hail to the Chief" each time you stroll in the room (but would not that be cool?).Nevertheless there are some similarities. For a single, as a nurse, you are nearly guaranteed to share this expertise with the President: one thing will go incorrect when you least assume it.The event was Fortune's Most Powerful Women summit and President Obama began his tackle. And then-THUD! The Presidential Seal on the front of the lectern fell off-and hit the floor!"Oh, goodness," he explained. "Which is all appropriate." There, with the eyes of the globe on him, President Obama smiled and explained, "All of you know who I am."The audience - both those individuals who had been in the space and individuals who caught the incident any of the hundreds of occasions it aired on the news - laughed. The minute passed, and the President moved on.I have to say, on some little scale, I know how he feels.Nurses always have an audience watching their every move-and sometimes factors go wrong.Have you ever been hurrying via your day-moving as fast as you can due to the fact apparently hourly rounds implies seeing the patient as soon as an hour, not taking an hour each time you make rounds! (Who knew?)-only to phase in what is identified as a Spill-of-Unspecified-Origin and go slip-sliding across the area?I know I have. (Much more than after, really.)President Obama demonstrated the perfect strategy to use in these conditions: acknowledge what took place, deal with it with humor, and move on.Which is why the very best thing to do in these conditions, soon after you've produced confident absolutely nothing was injured in the incident apart from your dignity, is to stand up and announce, "It truly is difficult, coaching for the Globe Acrobatics Competitors. I have to operate in all the practice I can get!"Your patient will absolutely appreciate your commitment to the tumbling arts, but that's not the only benefit of using humor in potentially embarrassing circumstances.Very first, the use of humor can disperse the tension and discomfort that arise when something goes incorrect. Sufferers know they will not have to be anxious about what happened: by joking, you happen to be assuring them that the scenario is not critical. Thinking about the reality that individuals are carrying at least some stress and stress with them just by the very nature of getting in the hospital, that's a relief.Second, like the President, a nurse is a leader. And whilst the fate of our nation does not lie on our shoulders, the fate of our individuals and their families is something we do carry with us, usually extended right after our shift is more than. Our patients seem to us for numerous items: data about what is going to happen next, insight about what their experience is going to be like, and advice about the greatest way to deal with what's coming.Occasionally the nature of our work necessitates emotional distance amongst us and our patients. But when we laugh, and we make it secure and appropriate for our sufferers to laugh too, both events are reminded of their bigger roles: members of the human race, in a world seemingly established to throw petty obstacles in our way. What can we do but laugh?Nicely, laugh-and make certain our seals are firmly affixed to the lectern at all occasions!©2016 Karyn Buxman.All rights reserved.Reprint rightsgranted so long as all back links are produced dwell.