As nurses, we are often in sit­u­a­tions in which we call upon our instinct, or that gut feel­ing. We might feel that some­thing isn’t quite right with a patient. Face it, we all know that our patients are quite focused and stead­fast when it comes to mak­ing sure they don’t miss a chemother­apy treat­ment, but I am sure we have all had sit­u­a­tions in which infor­ma­tion has been with­held by patients dur­ing the assess­ment process.

At this time, we often have a gut feel­ing that some­thing just isn’t quite right with the patient. I believe that this instinct has evolved through the devel­op­ment of assess­ment skills, under­stand­ing patient responses, and inter­pret­ing cues such as body language.

We might just  have a ten­dency to with­hold that infor­ma­tion from our­selves too. As well as being nurses, we have many other roles—parent, spouse/​partner, friend, etc.,  and these roles also take  much phys­i­cal, men­tal, emo­tional, and spir­i­tual effort. Nursing is such a car­ing and giv­ing pro­fes­sion, but even the best of us can become burnt out. We need to lis­ten to that gut feel­ing when it comes to our own well-​​being too.

Take the time to look after your­self and do some­thing just for you. (These words echoed through me today while I had a mas­sage. It’s my attempt to pay atten­tion to that gut feel­ing for myself.)