Today I sat on a bench outside the hospital and spaced out for forty-five minutes, which is another way of saying: Today, I supervised a group of nursing students while they educated a group of patients on the perils of malaria in the local dialect, which is another way of saying: Today, for all I know, my nursing students facilitated a heated discussion on the latest Manchester United game while I, with my toddler-like language skills, daydreamed about Peanut Buster Parfaits. Or is it Parsfait? Damn the French and their confusing pluralization rules.
After the Man-U debate, I gathered my students for a debriefing. In nursing school I hated debriefing but now that I’m the teacher, I get to ask those types of annoying teacher questions which have many possible answers but only one acceptable answer, i.e. the answer that I want to hear. And so I asked my little Man-U fans, “Why do we, as nurses, health educate?”
Fan #1: “Because it’s part of our job!”
Me: “No. Well…yes it is, but no.”
Fan #2: “Because we have the information and they don’t!”
Me: Ah. “Good point, but…no.”
Fan #3: “Because…it’s part of our job?”
Me: “Really? No, no….the correct answer, the only possible answer that could possibly be accepted by anyone important, meaning me, and I’m the teacher, is: To empower our patients. I would have also accepted: To empower the patient; English has some confusing pluralization rules.”
Why do we, as nurses, health educate? Why, to empower our patients of course! Empower them to what? To take control of their health! And how do we go about health educating our patients? By giving them just one small piece of the story, a small sample of confusing and sometimes controversial information related to one extremely specific health topic and then sending them out into the world, freshly Empowered, to Empower those around them!
Was it just me or did you also go out and eat an entire garlic lover’s pizza the very second CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta mentioned garlic was good for your health? I’ve binged on red wine for the age-defying flavanoids, drank my pre-Peace Corps weight in Starbucks Gingerbread lattes to reap the memory-boosting benefits of ginger and eaten entire family-sized boxes of low-fat Wheat Thins in one sitting with the assumption that multiple servings of a low-fat food can’t possibly equal a high-fat food. Plus the tiny green man on the label assured me they were one of many Smart Choices Made Easy. Tiny green men don’t lie. They just don’t.
I once heard that a handful of peanuts effectively suppresses appetite when eaten twenty minutes before a meal and the first thing I thought was, Hmmm…they didn’t specify the peanuts should fit into my tiny hand, per se. And that’s how I came to discover an entire jar of peanuts eaten twenty minutes before a meal will indeed effectively suppress appetite. Empowerment feels a lot like a stomachache.
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