A Pondering…
Physician, Doctor, Provider, Prescriber, Nurse Practitioner, Expert, Specialist…these are all titles we use when we talk about the professionals we see, to get to the bottom of all that ails us. I certainly can’t disagree that there are times when a prescription is needed, a surgery necessary, or medical advice is required. We certainly have options, treatments and cures that have kept children alive, extended life expectancy and given families more time when disease presents. However, when I read the quote above it isn’t these circumstances that cross my mind. Instead, what I think of is all the different ways people control their own healing. Certainly, social determinants of health play a big part here, access to care, affordability of healthy nutrition, food insecurity, affordable housing, family violence and stress. These factors all have an impact, and all require change but, in this instance, I am referring to the other factors that impact how a person can impact their own healing. The things that as a provider I can help them with but that I can’t just write a prescription for.
As a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, I will never heal my patients. That is a success that they will come to on their own. I will certainly be there along the way to support, encourage, consult and challenge them but the choice to heal will be theirs alone. Only they can decide how consistently they will take their medication (I will be judicious in offering affordable options), if they will learn new coping skills, if they will engage with community resources (to know how to help them access the resources is my job) or if they are willing to work to recover from traumas they may have faced (I will know therapists who can help and how to access different modalities) . Healing does not come because a provider sees a patient, because of a prescription is written or because we tell our patients what they should do. It comes from within and while I will have the privilege of standing by ready to assist or challenge my patients, I will never deserve the credit for their recovery or healing. To think otherwise would be arrogant and vain. It would disregard the work of my future patients and be in complete indifference to the privilege it is for patients to put trust in their providers.
I will be honored to sit with my patients in their darkness as they inch closer to the healing they desire, and I will remind them that the success is theirs alone.