By Matt Skoufalos
Upon graduating high school, Victoria Buhrman remembers being “dead-set” on a career in physical therapy. She spent a year of her undergraduate pursuing the degree in athletic training that she thought would set her up for it. But shadowing a physical therapist during a working day “woke me up,” Buhrman said.
“I was wanting a job that I’d have a work-life balance with, and I don’t think I would have found that in PT,” she said. “Their schedules are unbelievable. I’m so happy I didn’t do that.”
Buhrman pivoted to a nursing degree, and finished out her last year at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey as an extern at a nearby hospital system. She was hired there after she graduated in 2017, and in the six years since, has never left – not even during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, when many of her colleagues did. As a result, Buhrman became the charge nurse and head preceptor on a floor specializing in orthopedic surgery.
“I think I stayed in med-surg for so long because I like going in sometimes not knowing what kind of surgery I’m going to have, or what I’m going to see,” Buhrman said. “I have definitely grown in the same area, having the same managers, working with the same people, and that’s been helpful, especially during COVID.”
Prior to the pandemic, Buhrman described her attitude as “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” and although she still maintains a positive outlook, the experience of the pandemic has forced those nurses who stayed put, as she did, to do more with less.
“COVID set everyone back a little bit, because things haven’t been the same now,” she said. “It’s an adjustment for the whole medical profession.”
During the height of the pandemic, Buhrman’s floor was designated a “clean” floor, caring for high-risk surgical patients, and at a higher ratio – seven patients per nurse – than floors with COVID patients. Restrictions that had paused elective surgeries meant that every procedure performed was done out of critical necessity, which was a more intense patient load than she’d normally seen.
“Day to day, I have my patients pre-op and post-op,” Buhrman said. “I get them ready for the OR, and after they recover, I settle them down, and continue care thereon. Our ortho patients need to get out of bed, get moving, and pain management; and then sometimes it’s ER admissions.”
COVID restrictions meant nurses were asked to do more hands-on work, sometimes reporting patients’ vital signs and details about their physical and mental conditions back to physicians over telemedicine platforms. Coming out of the pandemic, Buhrman still sees nurses being asked to do more to make up for shortfalls in staffing in other hospital departments, often pulling linens, or helping turn over a patient’s room because environmental services teams are also overwhelmed. She also sees more frequently young, newly minted nurses and doctors who’ve completed clinicals in an online setting, and need time to get up to speed treating patients in person.
“A lot of people left during COVID, and a lot of them were the older nurses who had kids and didn’t want to get sick,” Buhrman said. “When COVID went down, we got an influx of nurses who came back and their seniority dropped.”
“My young nurse self used to think, ‘I’ll never be charge; I’ll never have to worry about the floor,’ ” she said, “and now I’m the senior nurse that everyone is coming to.”
“I take it as respect,” Buhrman said. “People ask me for advice because they trust that I know what I’m doing. I’m a unit counsel chair in my hospital, and I like it because I have a lot of say in how we run things.”
Although she initially found herself thrust into a more senior role when staffing levels fell, the experience proved to Buhrman that she belonged there. Rising to the occasion meant keeping her foot on the gas, but Buhrman learned that “I’m definitely more capable than I thought I would ever be.”
“Sometimes I chart on 10 different people in a day,” she said. “Admission, discharge; it’s a lot. It’s a lot of patient care, and a lot of paperwork, too, that keeps us from making connections with people like we used to. I think it’s driving some of the older nurses out.”
In the next phase of her career, Buhrman has her sights set on a primary care role. She’s in the last year of a nurse practitioner degree, and is just starting to consider what her approach to practice might be. She appreciates integrative and alternative medicine, as well as non-pharmaceutical wellness interventions, which she spent a significant amount of time exploring during the pandemic as well.
“I want to focus on people who want to be healthier with diet and exercise and healthy coping mechanisms instead of medications,” Buhrman said. “I, like a lot of health practitioners, had a lot of anxiety through COVID. I’m not someone who likes medicine, so I did a lot of work on other ways to adjust things. I made time to work out every day because I always felt better afterwards, even if it was just going outside during a walk. It instilled that you just have to think positively.”
After she completes her NP, Buhrman envisions working, and eventually teaching, at an academic nursing institution. She plans to join the nurse practitioner chapter of the American Medical Association, and continue working with the professional society for her specialty. When she’s not working, Buhrman enjoys exercise, travel, fine dining and time spent with loved ones.
Professional Spotlight Nomination
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