Week 9, Reassurance, and Some New Thoughts on Working During the Program

First, I want to say to all my readers that it is week 9 of the third quarter! I am both terrified by this (because due dates are looming) and so happy that it almost makes me jittery (the end of this first year is in sight)! I also really, really wanted to say to every nurse considering doctoral studies that this quarter was not that bad. I apologize for painting it in such a bad light. It wasn't the quarter that was awful, it was everything that happened around me in my life. The problem of course is that school and non-school interact to create an entirely different effect on one's life than either of the two separately ever could. (As an aside, the idea of an "interaction" is a statistical one as well as a term that we use in everyday language. Statistics - it pops up everywhere...)

 I wanted to mention and discuss two pieces of advice that I was told near the beginning of this program as my opinion on both has been modified over the course of this first year. First, in the beginning of the program, lots of professors, your advisor, and other students like to give advice about working during the program. I've also written briefly about it on this blog. All of this advise will conflict. I was not forced to make a choice about working or not working as my funding restricted my work outside of the program. But, I have volunteered my time as a nurse practitioner and midwife at a clinic as I didn't want to lose any skills. Also, I couldn't imagine not caring for patients for that long.

I think that it might not be a bad idea to discuss some of the underlying views on this topic a bit more. Many would argue that a nurse PhD should be an expert in a content area, and since nursing is a practice discipline and we draw some of our research questions from practice, it makes sense that a nurse pursuing her PhD should continue working at least some of the time. Others would note that pursuing a PhD is a more than full-time job already, and that while nursing is a practice discipline, academia isn't, so why add to your burden?

There is a lot of stuff going on in both of those statements. There are some thoughts about roles, and the different roles of nurses, there are some issues with our identity as nurses, and there is some ambivalence about our views of academia and bedside nursing, both. Initially, I erred on the side of the second statement - this is a busy enough time, why add the stress of working? But, I've slowly been changing my mind.

Being a PhD student is like starting over as a kindergartner. Each student is learning new things, and no student is an expert in class. It is a humbling and occasionally humiliating experience. In some ways, it has been harder for me and my peers who have a lot of experience and considered ourselves really accomplished nurses in our fields. We aren't accomplished anymore! And while learning is great fun, we're newbies, and it isn't always a good feeling.

So when I go to the clinic for my volunteer hours, I get to feel so accomplished. I know what to do! I know how to communicate with the patients! I know how to help them! I am good at something again! It is amazing. As the first year has progressed, my need to be in the clinic, feeling capable has increased. So, I want to tell my readers that while I don't recommend working full-time, or maybe even truly part-time, I strongly recommend working. I think it might be important to your sanity.

The next thing that I was told was to take a vacation every summer. Many, many students recommended this. One student even said, "I have taken out loans just to travel in the summer. It is that important." I heard this advice, but I didn't really pay much attention. I am a complete type A. I save my money, I am rarely frivolous, and I would never take out a loan for fun - that is crazy talk!

Except, now, I am a believer in the vacation. The only thing that is keeping me propped up right now is the knowledge that I'm going to be vacating for a good while when this quarter ends. It isn't just that I need a break (which I do need), it is the idea that I need to leave. And not even just the state, I feel a need to leave the country. I think that this is caused by a combination of my all too human fight-or-flight response to stress urging me to run away, and the idea that if I go very far away, no one can find me and ask me to do something. So I am now also recommending the summer vacation in its truest sense: to temporarily vacate your life.

Loss as a Concept

be·reft/biˈreft/Adjective

1. Deprived of or lacking something 

2. (of a person) Lonely and abandoned, esp. through someone's death or departure.

There is no time off in this program to grieve. It isn't that people aren't sympathetic, there just isn't any room to add time for a student to gather themselves. Last post, I mentioned that I should be back on track as long as no other life-altering events occurred. Well, remind me next time to keep my mouth shut. Last week I lost one of my firmest supporters and one of the people whose influence helped me get to this program: my grandfather. He was a scientist. He loved and actively sought knowledge - even knowledge without direct purpose.

The only word that I could find to describe how I feel is bereft. I am not "enraged," I am not "despairing," but I also can't seem to grieve. Instead, I feel "deprived and lacking something."

Some other cohort members have expressed the sense that one specific goal of this program is the active attempt to "tear us down" so that they can build something better out of us. I haven't felt this way about the program. Instead, I have described it as a type of socialization. They (the powers that be) were having us experience what it really is to think for a living - to be an academic.

Right now, though, I feel that my life is tearing me down. And school is preventing me from addressing that. I'm balancing on a tightrope, someone just knocked one of my feet out from under me, and there is NO NET.

I quit my job, I live thousands of miles from my family, and one of the people who believed I could do this isn't here now. I am bereft of my confidence. I am bereft of my certainty. I am even bereft of my ability to have a really good freak out. I have never run home for help because I've never needed that. But what if I never needed help because I always knew that if I did need it, it was there? Does that make any sense?! And, I don't even have time to think this through, because I have to think about other things - it is week 8!

This week, also, as my life has been assaulted, I have come to some conclusions about the program. I was wrong. It isn't socialization, it is a type of destruction. I have spent a year investigating concepts and theories. I came in with a pretty good idea of my question - and now that I know more, that's gone. I have no research question. I have less of a belief in my own knowledge on my topic. I feel naked and uncertain.

What comes from bereavement? Nearing the end of the first year, having lost the support of a loved one, my certainty of purpose, and my belief in my research ideas, what is there to be learned from all of it? I want someone to tell me that I will gain knowledge from this. My grandfather believed in science as a way to attain knowledge. I believe that too. Implicit in that belief is that knowledge will lead to understanding. But today, I am not sure that the rigorous application of methodical investigation techniques will help me understand.

And I am bereft.

Weeks Five and Six

I haven't blogged in a while because the last two weeks have been pretty awful. I lost my steadfast companion, KitKit, on April 25th. Even though he was my silent partner, his presence was always comforting. It is hard to panic about things when the cat can barely be bothered to wake up. Nothing was an emergency to him, and whether I succeeded or failed was meaningless to him. I was used to him sitting on my printer or on my desk while I worked. He didn't care if what I was writing was going to set nursing science on its ear, he just wanted to sleep near me and in the sun from the window.  It is harder to work without him.

The last picture I took of KitKit. He really loved to sleep in clean laundry...

The last two weeks have also included two midterms, a seven page paper, and a conference. Thankfully, I just finished week 6. Only five weeks to go. I am usually about two weeks ahead in readings and assignments, but this quarter I am two weeks behind. I actually wrote a paper (the whole thing) the day it was due. That has never happened before, and barring any other life catastrophes, it will never happen again. It was an unpleasant experience to actually be racing the clock while I wrote. I am not looking forward to the feedback from the prof on that paper. I can't imagine it will be good.

Hopefully, the next five weeks will pass quickly and without incident. I want to get out of this quarter and start prepping for next year. The second year is a big deal and I need to be focused. I also need to start planning my research residencies. If everything works out, I'll get to do one at the end of this summer...