Every human being sees the world through a variety of lenses. There are lenses of family roles (e.g., mother, father, child, grandparent), lenses of identity (e.g., gender, sexual orientation, race, citizenship, religion), and many others, including lenses of profession and career. How we see the world is filtered through the lenses we wear, most of which we wear simultaneously.
Nurses have a particular lens through which we see the world, and even though we may also identify as queer, liberal, disabled, Catholic, or as a mother or grandparent, our nursing lens is difficult to turn off once it’s turned on. And that lens is one that we’ll likely wear for the rest of our lives, even if we leave the profession or retire.
The Power of Lenses
Our many lenses serve multiple purposes. They help us navigate the world, make decisions, and choose the paths we travel.
If I identify as heterosexual, socially conservative, patriotic, and religious, I might view the homeless woman on the corner differently than my colleague, who identifies as queer, atheist, and liberal. I may have come from a family that provided lenses I rejected, or perhaps some of my family’s lenses still provide essential perspectives.
The thing about nurses is that, like anyone else, we can come from any background or persuasion, but we have also superimposed the lens of our business over those lenses.
Just as police officers, priests, psychologists, or schoolteachers have their professional lens through which they view the world, we employ the nursing lens. And no matter what we do, our nursing lens must function in the context of the many other lenses we wear.
The Nursing Lens
The moment you sat down in your first nursing class, your nursing lens began to take shape, even as it began to shape you. As you learned the nursing process, studied nursing theories, and started learning to think like a nurse, you began to see the world differently.
Did your community rotation in a local homeless shelter alter your viewpoint or perspective? Did tending to a dying patient impact how you viewed the value of your own life or your relationship with those around you? Did understanding the physiological, social, or psychological effects of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, sickle cell anemia, or addiction affect how you saw the world?
When we witness others’ suffering, the world around us changes. We may realize suffering’s universal nature and have new feelings for others that we didn’t have before. Maybe we’re more understanding of others who are different from us, or maybe we see how suffering shapes a person’s behavior, personality, and choices.
When we learn how to feel loving kindness and provide care for even the grumpiest and most sexist and judgmental older adults or the most innocent, sweet, and loving child dying of metastatic cancer, we’re using our nursing lens even as we’re transformed by what we’re experiencing. Older adults and young children are both windows into the human experience, and no matter how many lenses we’re wearing, their suffering gets through to us, and we address it using the nurse’s skills.
Transcend Your Lenses
Our lenses do indeed shape us and influence us, yet some lenses must sometimes supersede others, and the nursing lens is one such lens. Would we want the paramedic to refuse to treat us because she disagrees with our politics or lifestyle? Would we like the dentist to ignore a cavity because he knows we belong to a different church?
Yes, you may wear the lens of the gay, progressive white man who supports reproductive rights and votes for candidates who fight for racial justice. Still, your nursing lens also forces you to see with the eyes of compassion the conservative, Hispanic, Catholic woman who pickets in front of abortion clinics. She needs your undivided attention to her blood transfusion, and it’s your moral and ethical responsibility to set all other lenses aside.
When you walk into a patient’s room, enter their home, send them a follow-up email, or prepare for their physical assessment, many other lenses must take a back seat. Your nursing lens must dominate for the moment, leading you to focus with laser-like intensity on the patient.
We see the world through many lenses, but in the final analysis, it’s the nurse’s lens that must guide your hands, mind, and heart. The nurse’s lens can often lead to a sense of compassion and caring that makes all other lenses fade away, if only for a moment in time.
