A New Leaf

Today was collaboration day, which means from 8:00 a.m. to 10 a.m. the school nurses in our district get together and meet. Sometimes we discuss very pertinent practice issues and other times...well, we meet together anyway. Often times I find myself thinking of about a million other things I could be doing during the 2 hours I am meeting with my colleagues. I even tend to be a little vocal about my frustration with the "apparent" waste of time that collaboration can be. Not this time. Today could have turned very negative. The school nurse supervisor is trying to develop a survey for us to complete on how we manage our time and interact with staff and she was seeking our input on the development of the questions. The questions on the survey were starting out with such a negative spin...what are your biggest frustrations. Actually we only got to the first question before I piped up with: "I can't do negative. I have set a goal this year to love school nursing and I cannot start the year off with a questionnaire that is only going to focus on the negative. I just.can't.do.it" You should have seen the jaws drop--Nurse Graham not negative? Nurse Graham loving school nursing? They were delighted with this new outlook of mine and the tone of the meeting as well as the survey questions immediately took on a new direction. I truly am content with my life.