Is “winging it” a good or a bad thing? Generally, it has a bad undertone, like skimping on something important or reckless abandon with a hint of danger. “It’s all fine and dandy until someone loses an eye,” type of thing. I’ve been accused of winging it on more than one occasion.
Who should wing it? Do we all get the opportunity or are some people over classed and outside the scope of acceptability of winging anything? That might just be the case, however, I am of the mind that winging it is a crucial aspect that is closely correlated to one’s success in life. You can’t begin something expecting to have it all figured out. All beginnings of greatness start with a try. Try as you might, at some point you need to actually understand what you are doing, and in between, I think, that’s the place where we wing it.
For instance, what brought the subject to mind was my nursing school clinical instructor for my neurology rotation. I was working at Harborview Hospital in downtown Seattle at the time. It was nursing school, so I was the unpaid help so to speak. I’m very thankful for my opportunity to work several clinical rotations at this teaching hospital, I learned invaluable lessons here.
It was 1990, and I was finishing nursing school. I was 22 and have vivid memories of a few experiences here. The first real winging I did was mostly due to awkwardness and embarrassment. I had a patient with a “neurogenic bladder.” This happens from trauma to the pelvis region affecting the nerve impulses to the bladder, specifically the ability to urinate. I had a patient recovering from a car accident who had essentially a numb bladder. So, my job as the nurse was of course to insert a foley catheter and drain the bladder. Easy peasy you would think. Yeah, right.
I had to wing it. I knew how to do this procedure, and had practiced without issue on the mannequin in the classroom, but this was the first live, real-deal catheter insertion. This alone isn’t a big problem, the problem was the fact that my patient was also a 23-year-old man. That was a time I had to convince myself to get in there and “wing it.” I remember to this day, trying not to get the uncontrollable giggles that were starting to bubble up. I was convincing myself “Of course Jenni, you get this scenario, what else do you expect?” I always seem to live by Murphy’s law. I shouldn’t be surprised that this is my fate. I had a huge smile on my face, I couldn’t stop looking like an idiot, and I actually told him “You don’t need to be embarrassed because I’m embarrassed enough for the both of us.” And wouldn’t you guess it the next day, he was still not able to pee, and I got to do it all over again. It wasn’t any easier.
Another problem that I had with this was the fact that I said I was going to “wing it,” out loud, when a fellow student questioned my game plan. She was very unsympathetic to my plight. It was with laughter in her voice and I’m sure a little bit of glee in her heart that it was me and not her who got this patient. “I don’t know, I’m just gonna wing it,” I responded. My clinical instructor happened to be lurking around the corner and I got an extra assignment that day. She found me later and told me that I had to give an impromptu educational lecture to my class that day on the clotting cascade. The what?? The hell you say! I had about an hour to prepare for this lecture and still had my patients to care for.
Guess who gave a great lecture on explaining the intricacies of the clotting cascade and the many clotting factors that need to occur in sequence to create a blood clot? Me, that’s who, after I asked the covering neurology resident to explain to me what the heck the clotting cascade was. I took notes and shared the knowledge with my students, and we were all equally impressed with the marvels and complexities of the human body.
Also, since Murphy’s law always finds me, my clinical instructor was a retired nurse who was also a Drill Sargent in the US Army. Of course, she was. She wasn’t bad really, just wanted to be sure she made her point clearly. Winging it as a nurse isn’t something that you announce to others (even when you’re all in the same boat), especially in the hallway of the hospital.
There are important scenarios that call for winging it. If you don’t you might freeze up and not move forward. Life can be scary, unpredictable, and super embarrassing at times, but we can’t let difficult situations push us off our course. I say, “just wing it.” It will get you started and it’s up to you and only you to catch the breeze and soar.