Welcome to our blog! Keith Carlson has worked as a nurse since 1996. He received an Associate Degree in Nursing from Greenfield Community College in 1996, and a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2001.
OCD and Nurses: Nature or Nurture?
While the title of this post is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, humor often is a thin disguise for truth. That said, is it truly the case that most nurses are obsessive-compulsive because their jobs make them that way, or are people prone to obsession or compulsion more likely to become nurses?
We all know the scenario: you have boxes to check off on a checklist, meds to count, flowsheets to fill out, intake and output to chart, and drip rates to calculate. Meanwhile, you have to keep track of seven patients’ vitals, incoming orders, standing orders, scheduled treatments, and a plethora of other demands too numerous to mention.
Does Obsession Breed Order?
Given that your job consists of an incredible array of tasks and duties that could make anyone’s head spin on a good day, isn’t there a touch of obsessiveness that helps you to keep everything in mind as you work your way through the tasks that you must complete by the end of your shift? Does your proclivity for orderliness and your ability to complete these tasks in a (relatively) calm manner lead you to believe that your obsessiveness serves you in some way?
Many of us have probably known nurses who just weren’t organized enough to keep up with the demands of a particular position. These nurses just couldn’t keep it all together, they forgot things, and they never seemed able to master the art of maximum multitasking. Perhaps they just needed a position that was less demanding in terms of multiple demands occurring simultaneously. This is not a character flaw, but simply a different way of working and a different mindset. Perhaps the chronically obsessive nurse would be bored to death at a job that required less multitasking. But one nurse’s hell is certainly another nurse’s heaven.
When Does Your Obsessiveness Hurt You?
So, if your obsessiveness is either an inherited trait (nature) or a trait learned in nursing school and finely honed on the job (nurture), are there times when it hurts you or backfires? Are there ways in which your desire for ultimate order causes you to snap at colleagues or wear imaginary blinders that keep you from seeing anything but the tasks at hand? Does your tendency towards obsession or compulsion impair you in some way?
The ability to remain focused and get the job done with skill, efficiency and accuracy is laudable. However, when that focus becomes tunnel-vision and you lose your ability to be flexible or sensitive, you then move into the category of a nurse who compulsively focuses so intently on his or her tasks and lists that you miss things that may be important, both clinically or otherwise. You may miss out on casual moments of joking with colleagues because you can’t break away from your tasks for a moment of comic relief. You may miss blatant signs of infection because you see the numbers and data but can’t “see” the patient. So many things can be missed by the mind that is mono-focused to a fault.
Your compulsion and task-oriented focus can cost you, so be careful not to lose sight of the forest for the details of the trees.
OCD is Us!
So many of us could easily label ourselves as having OCD or some other diagnosis that might explain why we are the way we are. What’s important is to recognize these traits in ourselves, capitalize on the inherent strengths therein, and then monitor and gently change the traits that get us into trouble or otherwise sabotage our ability to function at our optimal best.
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