Never Stop Learning

“Never stop learning”. It’s more than just an eye-catching, Instagram-worthy statement mural. It’s something that I, as a nurse, take to heart. This fall I’ve started a new position, transitioning into a new nursing niche. It’s always been my dream to pursue a career in pediatrics, and now that dream is a reality! I’m officially a nurse at Children’s Wisconsin in Milwaukee, a state-of-the-art hospital dedicated entirely to promoting and maintaining the health of children. I’ve joined the team in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, where my patients can range from newborn babies to adolescents on the cusp of adulthood. Here, my patients recover from life-saving surgeries to correct complex congenital heart defects, and battle post-surgical complications that threaten to cloud over what should be an active, normal childhood. But despite it all, so many of these children grow and thrive, thanks to skilled healthcare team members carrying out cutting edge medical advancements that have helped Children’s earn national merit and recognition.

Does that all sound a bit intimidating? I thought so too…but I’ve always been one to set my sights high and go after a challenge! With this switch in nursing specialty, it feels like I’ve quite literally been thrown back into school, back into the front row of the lecture hall, surrounded by a dizzying array of notes, diagrams, definitions, and policies. It can be easy to get overwhelmed and worry “how will I ever learn it all? When is my deadline to know everything? After a year? Two years?”

While there are basic deadlines by which I need to grasp certain fundamental competencies in my role, there is no deadline in my profession by which I need to know everything. In fact, I’d say with a fair amount of confidence that no nurse knows everything, no matter how long they’ve worked, or how many advanced degrees they have, or how many different nursing specialties they’ve worked in. And that’s the beauty of ~lifelong learning~. As I mentioned in my previous post, this may be a triggering catchphrase to many nurses and nursing students, but to me it’s more of a mindset, one I really do my best to believe in and one we all could, no matter who we are.

Think of it this way, as lifelong learners, we’re actually in a position to take some pressure off ourselves. We don’t need to stress about an impending deadline by which we need to know EVERYTHING…there is no such thing! By shifting our mindset to see that gaining knowledge is an ongoing, lifelong journey rather than a specific, all-or-nothing, set endpoint, I feel like we could develop a deeper appreciation for the things we do know, and an equal appreciation for the fact that we still have questions and things to learn and time to learn them.

You know what happens when you think you know everything? You stop asking questions. Your curiosity fades. You become complacent. Complacency has no place in healthcare…the future of our health and well-being quite literally depends on curiosity and people asking questions and the inherent desire to discover more; how to grow, how to change, how to improve (aka research).

But why should this concept only be centered in healthcare? Shouldn’t it be incorporated into basic, everyday life? I think so. Now I’ll be honest…within the intense environments of school and work, sometimes I just don’t feel like learning. When it’s 5am on the night shift and my brain cells are hanging on by a thread, it’s probably not the best time to initiate intense learning…same as when I had been studying for hours in the library in nursing school…there comes a time when it’s just not practical to learn…your mind does not have to be open for business 24/7. There must be a balance between rest and learning (and those of you who know me from my school days have permission to call me a hypocrite, as I fully admit I was probably too much “study” and not enough “rest”…I may attempt to give sage advice but I’m not perfect, and yes, I do fall off the wagon sometimes and fail to practice what I preach).

But I digress…lifelong learning is about vowing to keep your mind flexible. It’s ok to keep it closed for times of much needed rest, but open it back up again, even when you feel a little hesitant. Curiosity takes courage, and strength, and discipline, and practice. Maybe what we ought to be focusing on is getting better at learning, not just better at knowing.

If you can learn, then you can know, and if you know, then you can teach, and that’s how the cycle keeps on rolling. Teaching is contingent on learning…in order to give knowledge, you need to gain it yourself first. To all my fellow healthcare workers out there, we are all teachers in our own right, (whether we intentionally got an advanced degree in education or not!) and our patients’ levels of knowledge depend on our own. Don’t just learn for yourself, learn for others. Knowledge is power, and it is meant to be shared…keep the cycle of teaching and learning going!

I love to teach…if you know me at all, you know I could talk about patient education for days (I mean, I wrote an entire thesis centered around a new strategy to improve the delivery of patient education, for goodness’ sake!) To me, an intelligent person is not someone who claims to “know everything”, but someone who carries out the learning and teaching cycle; they rest so they can learn, and they learn so they can teach; they keep their mind flexible, and they are content in the fact that knowledge is part of a cycle, gained along a lifelong journey, and is not a set endpoint.

I aspire to be this intelligent person. I aspire to be a great teacher, and so I need to practice being a great learner. I am grateful for the knowledge I have, for my ability to share it, and for the vast amount of knowledge I have yet to obtain. Be relentless in your pursuit of knowledge, and never stop learning.