As fall is upon us men and women, young and old are entering nursing classrooms and learning environments around the world. Whether diploma, degree, graduate students or PhD research there is so much to learn. No matter how much you learn, there is so much that is not being taught. As my undergraduate is further and further in my review mirror I'm starting to understand so much more what good nursing is really all about.

When I was taking my BScN we were all just trying to keep our heads above water. Get the courses finished, the assignments in and being sure not to hurt anyone in clinical practice. When you are at that type of thought level there is very little time for mind growth, you just shove in information, get it back out on the exam, and keep going. Hoping that something will be left by the end of that 4 years. I know I felt somewhat surprised when I passed my nursing license, I didn't feel different, but apparently I knew a lot more than 4 years previous.

One thing that I noticed too is that despite not always being able to come up with the right answer to my preceptors question, meaning I had to go look it up or double check, I often got along very well with patients. Somehow I could often work with patients that had refused to have other men care for them or had "fired" certain staff from caring from them. Now, I'm no patient whisperer, when you are student you often just have more time to spend with the patient, to be more human, more humane with them. Today, while watching a video with Dean Ornish (one of my heros) and Deep Chopra (a person I rarely cared to pay attention to) I realized why what I spending time with patients had such a big impact on them.

Community is a way of providing peace of mind. Peace of mind, happiness, joy and other positive emotions influence the way we feel and change our physiology. Negative emotions hurt us too. People say that hospitals can be risky places to be, because of injury, but what about the way we are treated? If my parents or sister wakes me up I can be a less than pleasant person, if I heard an alarm going for 5 minutes I'd lose my mind, let alone all day. What does the hospital environment and the way we rush around and ignore our patients do to their physiology?

To all the students out there, remember this. You will learn it all in time. You will eventually know all the cranial nerves, what they do and how to test each one. You will know the indications, contraindications and potential interactions of the drugs you come to use on a regular basis. But more importantly never forget that you are caring for another person, and if you can make them feel valued they will feel better. If you can make them feel cared for and love you will improve their health.