<it is not necessary to be a nurse to be an lc. some might even say it is
an
advantage. >

I did find it felt like a disadvantage to be a staff nurse as well as an
LC, like leading a double life. I hired on to that part time job as a
nurse, and I was expected to carry the load of patients just like all the
rest of the nurses. As an LC, I wanted to do it differently, but there
was just so much one could do in 8 hours.

That was 20 years ago. I hope things have changed, but I doubt it. I hope
other nurses will tell me it's no longer so. Once a nurse, always a
nurse, many of us agree. And unfortunately, when you are bound by other
people's (administration and insurance companies and physicians)
protocols and staffing priorities, you have to take it, or leave it at
times, because if it's not the season for change in your hospital,
sometimes it takes more off-duty preparation time and energy than any one
nurse has to expend.

 <i
can't live in that world. i can change it, though. i don't work in that
world
officially, but i can educate support and empower. and it will change.>

I certainly hope so. Hospital nurses need all the help along that line
that they can get. I sometimes miss the satisfaction I got being there,
but now that so many are practically required to work 12 hour shifts, I
too could not live in that world.

K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC
Dayton, Ohio USA

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