“Nurses Who Return to the Workforce After Leaving For More Than 3 Years”

Definition

I alluded to my life and nursing experience in ‘Why Appreciate Refresher Nurses. I left off at the part where I felt that 2 hospitals valued hiring me. Both had different reasons, valid reasons to them, and I would like to explore some very valuable reasons why experienced, refresher nurses should be hired.

I am not necessarily talking about older nurses. You only have to be out of nursing for 3 years in most areas, to be considered a refresher nurse. But in my case I was 53 and I was out for longer than 3 years. For 25 years, we lived a self-sufficient lifestyle and raised 3 children. My childrens ages at the time I needed to return to work were then 19, 20, 21.

10 reasons to Appreciate Refresher Nurses

1. Expert, Seasoned Life Knowledge

Life experience, living out what you have learned makes anyone valuable. It provides a well rounded context in which critical thinking becomes a way of life. This is a way of life that fits perfectly with any career context.

2. Ability to Organize, Classify & Respond to Data

If you have ever worked in a high stress, fast-paced setting, you have to have the skills of prioritizing your work load and working with a team. There is no area that does not benefit from this skill. With living a complicated lifestyle, raising children, this necessary skill is a necessary and essential given.

3. Executes Several Programs or Events Simultaneously

What mother, or farmer, rancher or self-sufficient person does not multitask? What wife or hubby, doesn’t have the need to know multitasking. This skill comes with living life. When I went into nursing college at the age of 17, I had no clue of multitasking or other life skills, but I could do nursing skills very well. I found the more career experienced nurses had little trouble with making their routine run smoothly. It comes with experience. Refresher nurses have had life experiences along with the career skills. A good fit.

4. Provides Morally Acceptable Explanations for Behaviors

A mature person will be able to find the perfect rationalization for why things are done the way they are. It is like cause and effect. When you see what the consequences are in life, it is easier to make solid decisions. This carries over to a nursing career. An older person responds very well to the why questions of a job. A younger person will learn the skills of the career very well, and better than some mature persons starting into the career world. But unless younger persons have the life experience, and many do, then they are hard pressed to rely on ‘clinical judgment’ as it is sometimes called.

5. Uses Observation Skills as an Essential Part of Living

Have you ever known someone in a self-sufficient lifestyle or someone raising children that does not have the opportunity to observe the situation and then move to correct it? That characteristic is an essential asset to a nursing career. To observe the symptoms of a person so the right diagnosis is obtained is crucial. I was very good at that, nothing missed my notice. My co-workers would always comment that they would like me to be their nurse because I would catch everything going on.

6. Perceives, Detects & Monitors Data to Substantiate Facts

By analyzing our own thought processes, we become better at everything we do. What parent does not do that, or a farmer, or hobby maker, or career person? Everyone needs this trait, when it comes with life, it is a broad spectrum introspection and really can make the difference between knowing your limits and capabilities and reasons for doing things. In nursing, that would keep you in the right job, the right skill, the right team. Introspection is critical to making great decisions. You know your limits.

7. Identifies, Defines, and Selects Correct Solutions

In nursing especially, problem-solving skills are used moment by moment. The same principle applies to parenting, or any type of lifestyle. It is crucial, and refresher nurses have this in abundance. We just need to redirect this skill into the chosen career.

8. Strong Character That Embraces Culture

What does culture have to do with essential nursing skills? I am talking about being able to survive in a culture that may not include you as a needed asset. Maybe they think you are too old and so can not be worth anything. I definitely got that. Maybe you get trapped as I did in a mentality where “you didn’t know anything when you came here (students get that) so you will never know anything.” That does do a lot for building character. But many nurses who have gone through more life, have a lot more to offer in this respect, than nurses who do not have the maturity and experience. I find myself joking about this phenomenon often: ‘Wait- let me get my cane out… Hold on, let me position my glasses right – the better to see you.’

9. Great Variety of Life Experiences

By the time I graduated from nursing school in 1975, the research I had studied changed several times. But new findings and studies are not always the best fit in practicality. Principles teach the ability to adapt to new experiences and to grasp the concepts, making the new changes easier to follow. Life lives on principles, not only new information.

10. Mature Judgments Based On Character

When a life is experienced outside a career there comes maturity. The same maturity that naturally comes as one ages. The maturity to accept change, to welcome change and to be involved in change. Change can be exciting and fulfilling. Nurses who have had many years of experience in one career or department sometimes have the hardest time changing and molding when change comes. A mature person who is used to things ever changing will be able to adapt to change easier because it is new to them, they did not know what things were set at before they returned to the workforce.

This is like the Florence Nightingale concept of nursing that I started with, read about, and enjoyed.

Comment below if you are a refresher student, or you were one, or know someone who is. This is a special calling and congratulations are in order!