The nurse, according to Nina, is one of the first people a patient sees. The one who is there after surgery when the person wakes up, who meets the patient with their anxiety and questions, explains what is happening, helps endure the wait, and sometimes just sits beside them.
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“Nursing is both a science and an art,” says Nina. And from her story, it becomes clear that it is precisely the combination of these two things that defines this profession for her, according to the press release.
Discovered nursing in childhood
Nina’s path to nursing began long before she chose the profession. In childhood and adolescence, she herself was a frequent hospital patient – she visited medical institutions several times before adulthood. There, she was first fascinated by the people – nurses and doctors who welcomed her warmly, communicated, and cared. “Then I looked at them and thought: I want to be like that too,” she recalls.
“Nursing is both a science and an art,” says Nina.
Later, studies at Vilnius College, Vilnius University, and this year – Klaipėda University, where she completed her master’s degree. Studies are not a closed chapter for Nina. She is interested in nursing science, psychology, methodology, teaches, conducts training: “And when you start delving into a topic, you inevitably learn yourself,” Nina summarizes.
Her professional outlook was also shaped by the people she met. She considers her master’s thesis supervisor, Professor Vilma Žydžiūnaitė, a particularly important person, whose lectures, according to Nina, inspire confidence and striving for more: “She knows how to enchant us that we can do it and must strive for change,” says Nina.
The patient is not just a diagnosis
Today Nina works in the Nephrology and Kidney Transplantation Department. Here, patients are often not one-time hospital visitors. They keep returning to the department for various reasons – dialysis, tests, treatment, transplantation, sometimes due to complications or rejection reactions.
Therefore, a natural bond forms between the nurse and the patient.
For nurse Nina, this is one of the most important parts of nursing – not always doing something, sometimes just being beside the patient.
Nina clearly remembers one patient who was informed that a suitable donor organ had been found and could be transplanted to her. It seemed like it should have been one of the happiest pieces of news. However, the woman cried – she was scared, didn’t know what to do, what awaited her. Talking to such a person was not easy, as with others who were tired of the illness, didn’t know what awaited them, or what possible consequences there might be.
The disease affects everyone differently, and sometimes the slightest disorder can end in serious complications. Instead of trying to calm the patient with promises, nurse Nina simply sat beside her and talked. About fear, waiting, about what the woman was experiencing and what worried her.
After many years, this patient still recalls that conversation: “How good it was that we talked then.” For nurse Nina, this is one of the most important parts of nursing – not always doing something, sometimes just being beside the patient.
“I don’t know if everything will be okay”
At first glance, this may sound unexpected – after all, a patient in the hospital wants to hear encouragement and hope. However, Nina believes that professional support should not be a promise but being with the person when they need it: “If you say everything will be okay, you take responsibility for it being so. We cannot guarantee that,” she says.
If you say everything will be okay, you take responsibility for it being so.
Therefore, instead of a promise, Nina chooses other words: she explains what is happening now, what can still be done, and how to help the person endure the difficult stage.
This approach is especially important for patients after kidney transplantation. Transplantation is not a full stop after which “all difficulties are over.” It is a new stage with its own challenges, risks, and limitations.
Sometimes the first days after transplantation are particularly difficult for the patient. They wait for the transplanted kidney to start working, watch test results that do not improve, may feel pain and anxiety. Around them, they may hear other patients’ stories about how everything worked out for them, so they start thinking: why is it so hard for me?
“It is necessary to mention the good things, but it is also essential to say that it can be difficult. That does not mean it will be bad,” says Nina.
In her opinion, the patient needs not only positivity but also a realistic understanding of what awaits them.
Waiting is also part of the treatment journey
Treatment and care for patients with kidney diseases often become a long life stage full of challenges, waiting, and important changes. A person may come to this department just after hearing the diagnosis and knowing almost nothing about dialysis or transplantation. Later begins the wait for a kidney transplant.
A particularly difficult stage for dialysis patients. Life becomes much more restricted: fluid intake must be controlled, days planned to accommodate dialysis procedures every other day, and once placed on the transplant waiting list, waiting and uncertainty arise: “The person feels tied down – afraid to travel further because they might get a call and be summoned for transplantation,” Nina explains.
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When a call comes about a potential donor, several potential recipients arrive at the hospital. They wait for test results and each quietly wonders if this time it will be their turn and if the kidney will be suitable.
The nurse’s task at such times is to maintain attention to each patient. And even when the transplantation happens, the work does not end. The patient needs to relearn how to live with the transplanted organ: take medications, know what to avoid, understand infection and kidney rejection risks, and take care of their health.
Nurse Nina would like patient education to be even stronger. She dreams of a special learning base for transplanted patients – a patient school where they could systematically learn everything important for living with a transplanted kidney.
When it hurts not only the patient
Nurse Nina’s work is full of joyful moments, but she also has to endure painful losses. When a patient dies whom you have known for a long time and been beside on their illness journey, the loss is also felt by those who were close. “I cannot calmly endure that time. We know them, know their relatives, so the loss shakes us and does not let go for a long time,” she says.
In such situations, the team becomes very important. The opportunity to talk with colleagues, express what is difficult, remember the patient and their story. Nina admits – there are days when the workload is huge, when after a night shift or a difficult transplantation it seems there is no strength left. But team support helps not to break down.
She herself has worked in a hospice. There she felt even more what holistic – comprehensive – patient care means. Not just the disease and its treatment, but the person, their relatives, environment, fears, desires, and the need to be together.
“We talk a lot about holistic medicine, holistic care, but in practice, we sometimes really miss it. Life is not easy for a long-term sick person and their relatives. And being beside them, caring, maintaining the ability to work professionally and not break down – it is definitely not easy,” says nurse Nina.
“It’s not enough for a person that you just perform a function”
Nina Sergejeva’s master’s thesis topic was patients’ psychosocial adaptation after kidney transplantation. Conducting qualitative research, she talked with patients and heard what, in her opinion, every nurse should hear.
Patients would like the nurse not only to perform the procedure but also to stop for a moment – to talk, joke, be beside them not only as a specialist doing their job but also as a person. “I would like more attention to be given, more human connection,” says Nina.
She understands the other side too – when one nurse has many patients, there is very little time for conversation. But the patient’s needs do not disappear because of that: “It is not enough for a person that the specialist just comes, quickly performs the medical manipulation, and leaves. They want the specialist to come, calmly do everything, and also pay attention.”
According to Nina, this requires not only professional knowledge but also the nurse’s personal qualities. Some people establish connections more easily, others are more reserved, but the ability to communicate, provide emotional support, and educate the patient is an integral part of nursing.
Nursing – science and art
Nurse Nina’s profession does not occupy all her space in life, although as she herself says, there is very little time left for other things. She has become and held several exhibitions, reads a lot, is interested in psychology and methodology, teaches students. And music helps her relax – perhaps an unexpected direction, but she likes heavy metal.
Nurse Nina Sergejeva says that probably it is precisely this combination of different interests and experiences that helps her maintain balance at work, where every day she encounters human pain, hope, fear, and joy.
Nina does not hide – she really likes clinical work: “I like being beside patients, performing procedures, solving situations, learning. But at the same time, I increasingly value what you cannot write in a medical record: nursing is also an art because there are things that need to be solved creatively and not only by using medical knowledge to properly resolve situations.”
And perhaps the most important rule of her profession fits into one sentence: not to promise the patient what you cannot guarantee, but never leave them alone with what they are experiencing.
Because sometimes the best thing a nurse can do is not say “everything will be okay,” but just sit beside and say: “Let’s talk.”
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