This month’s Nursing Notes newsletter delves into the world of the clinical nurse specialist. Recently, we got the chance to talk with Featured “Get to Know Nurse” Susan Bruce, a clinical nurse specialist in oncology at Duke Raleigh Cancer Center in North Carolina. I asked Susan about her career as a nurse and what inspired her to continue to advance her practice level as a Clinical Nurse Specialist.

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Jamie Davis:           Susan, welcome to Nursing Notes Live.

Susan Bruce:         Thank you, Jamie. I’m happy to be here.

Jamie:                  Susan, one of the things I like to always ask is what led you to become a nurse and enter this career, this calling which I think any of us nurses really believe it is a calling, to be part of this healing team that brings people such comfort and nurses certainly are very good at doing that. Tell us a little bit about how you became a nurse, how you made that decision.

Susan:                  Yes. Once upon a time – now, seriously though, my grandmother was nurse. I think I never had any questions about what I wanted to be. I don’t recall ever wanting to be anything else but a nurse. I think I was very much taken in with some of her stories about what it was to be a nurse. Back in those days, because I’ve been a nurse now for 33 years, so back in those days they prepared the meals, they scrubbed the floors, they did the nursing care and all of that. There was just like something very touching about the way she would tell stories about being a nurse. Her background was mother-baby. She worked nights and spent a lot of times with the new mothers after they had delivered babies so I think a lot of teaching occurred. Then I thought, “That really sounds like what I wanted to do.” I get to meet people at a happy time in their life – or she did anyway – I would have that opportunity as well. I think that’s what initially got me drawn into nursing. Also of note, her sister was a nurse. I don’t know that much background, what kind of nursing she did, but just the thought that a couple of members in my family were nurses, I think, just kind of guided me in that direction. How I got to where I am today in oncology: I started out in a Children’s Hospital after I graduated from school and worked on a teenage Psych unit and Medicine unit. I think I took care of my very first oncology patient there. She was a 16-year-old leukemia patient. I just really got involved with her care and the fact that she was in and out and the ability to get to know her better. I really liked that more than just hands-on a patient that maybe came in to surgery, have their surgery, and went home. You really didn’t get to know the people that well. After that, I did a brief period of medical-surgical nursing and have the opportunity to relocate to Boston and decided to pursue my career in oncology nursing. I’ve been doing that now for 30 years and can’t think of anything else that I would rather do. There is something about being able to reach out and touch the lives of people and their families when they are at a very vulnerable time in their life and certainly people diagnosed with cancer they are in a very vulnerable state of time. Just getting to know them being there and being their guide through this journey is how I like to think of it. I have worked very many years at the bedside. In fact, for the majority of my career, I’ve been at the bedside. Within the last 15 months or so, I have taken on a clinical nurse specialist role which is certainly a little bit different than being at the bedside.