[ Back to Lt. Lily Elam ]
When Mom became head nurse of her surgical floor in 1962, she typed this
list on the office typewriter, one page, single-spaced, and gave a carbon copy
to every new graduate who came to work for her. She kept retyping it as the
carbons wore out, for every new nurse she supervised until she retired in 1985,
and in all those years she added only two rules (numbers 19 and 20). I found the last copy in her desk, folded in quarters, with
a coffee ring on it. Her former nurses still write to me quoting it. Here it is,
exactly as she typed it.
5 WEST — RULES FOR NURSES
(Read them. Keep them. I will ask.)
1. Wash your hands. Then wash them again. Then go in.
2. Read the order. Read it again at the medicine cart. Read it a third time at
the bedside, before you give anything to anybody.
3. Learn the patient's name and use it. "Bed 12" is a piece of furniture.
4. Never say "This won't hurt." Say "This will pinch," and then be quick.
5. Sit down when you talk to a frightened patient, even for one minute. Standing
tells them you are about to leave.
6. Buy good shoes and polish them. You will walk miles every shift. Your feet
are equipment.
7. If you don't know, ask. No patient was ever harmed because a nurse asked a
question.
8. Chart what you did, when you did it, and nothing you did not do. If it is not
written down, it did not happen.
9. The family is part of the patient. Tell them what you can. Find out what you
can't.
10. On nights, walk the floor every hour, even when it is quiet. Especially
when it is quiet.
11. Do not let a doctor talk down to you. Do not ever talk down to an aide or
an orderly. They will save you more often than the doctors will.
12. Your cap is not a crown.
13. Eat something before your shift. You cannot take care of anyone from the
floor.
14. Write the letter for the patient who cannot. Read the letter for the
patient who cannot.
15. If you must cry, use the linen closet, not the bedside. Then wash your face
and go back out.
16. Keep your bandage scissors on a string. Everyone will try to borrow them.
17. Laugh at what is funny. There is more of it on this floor than you would
think.
18. When a patient dies, close the door, take one minute, and then do the next
thing well. The next patient deserves all of you.
19. You will forget most of the names. Remember the faces.
20. Leave the floor better than you found it.
— L. E. Burke, R.N.
|
Number 12 was the one the student nurses quoted back to her at her
retirement party. Number 14 she learned in France. Number 16 was the one she
enforced most fiercely; I have never seen anybody in my family lose a pair of
scissors, and we all keep ours on a string to this day.
If you're a nurse, or about to become one, print this out. She would like
that better than anything else on this page.
[ Back to Lt. Lily Elam ]
nurses and friends have read the rules
Eva Burke · [email protected]
Last updated September 19, 1999
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