Peplau is Rolling In Her Grave

Today in my Nursing Fundamentals class we were discussing health and wellness. Most of us nursing students think of health and wellness as that of the patient. We also have to remember that health and wellness means ourselves to, both as future nurses and as nurses who are in the clinical practice. Burnout is something that a lot of people talk about and they talk about various reasons for feeling the symptoms of it. Nurses feel as if they get no credit for the work they do, they are stressed, they have a huge work load that is hard for them to deal with, they have a difficult patient. All of these are important factors that can lead to burnout. I know that I am no expert on this subject, I'm not even half a nurse yet, but from my observations I have seen one problem that can contribute to burnout. The problem is paperwork. How many nurses can say that they have spent more time looking at the computer than at the actual patient? I'm sure most of them. The nurses get frustrated because they have to help the patient with something, but they have to finish all the charting. I'm not saying that charting is a bad thing, it's absolutely essential when it comes to nursing care. I'm just saying that maybe there needs to be a change. Hildegard Peplau was the nurse who made the theory saying that the interaction between the nurse and the client is essential to the client's health. I'm sure they teach that all in nursing school, but does it really occur 100%on the floor? When does a nurse get to actually see their patients? During assessment, during med pass. Sorry, but that's about all I can think of. The nursing assistant is often times the one taking the patient to the bathroom and help with the other ADL's (Activities of Daily Living). So where is the reward in THAT? Don't we want to be nurses to make an impact and to see that change? Not just in the charts, but in the way the patient improves physically and psychologically. There is so much reward when getting to know a patient. I think that there would be so much less unhappiness, stress and burnout if the nurses would get their noses off the computer screen and into the patient's room. What ways can we help to keep that from happening? If you have any opinions, ideas, or comments, please share!
Thanks for reading!