Winged Woman - Nurse Nayanka Duplan, BSN, RN
1. Please introduce yourself, and what you do for a living.
My name is Nayanka Duplan and I am a BSN,RN. I take care of acute, critically and chronically ill patients in the hospital setting, recently with a focus on COVID patients.
2. What is something you’ve learned traveling to different parts of the world for your work?
You will not be respected without confidence and self assurance. When you are traveling you are likely to be traveling solo coming into a crew of individuals that have been working at a particular facility for a long time. You need to be able to show up with confidence and self assurance in your practice or you will get walked all over!
3. What is the hardest thing you have had to go through because of the pandemic and any advice on overcoming tough stuff?
In regards to the pandemic the hardest thing I’ve had to go through was really the amount of deaths and complications that I witnessed.
It was really heartbreaking and shocking as a nurse coming from a culture where you always have the answers (or if not there is always a way to find the answers), there is always a way to help, you have protocols that you follow for everything and having adequate resources to going into a situation where you have very little information on the disease, nobody really can provide guidance and there are very little resources to provide quality care.
As a nurse you really don’t have much control over the prognosis of the virus. Although you are taking care of them and helping in the emotional sense of being there for your patients I felt that nurses were constantly going above and beyond to do everything they could to keep their patients alive and functional, just to watch half of them deteriorate anyways regardless of their efforts.
4. If you had one piece of advice for your community, what would it be?
My advice on overcoming tough stuff is to make sure to vent to your support systems, stop trying to hold everything in you will go crazy!
As well as treating yourself to self-care sessions (easier said than done) but making self-care a priority is key to overcoming “tough stuff”, venting is considered self-care as well! My personal self-care methods included working out, venting, deep tissue massages, and shopping!