If you can keep your stethoscope when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.

If you can trust yourself when all anaesthetists doubt you,
But make allowances for their doubting too.

If you can wait for a Surgical Team and not be tired of waiting,
Or being gossiped about, don't deal in Hospital gossip,
Or being slated, don't give way to slating.

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can be ready for physiotherapy before the Physio' comes,
If you can drink, and not make coffee breaks your aim.

If you can meet with physicians and surgeons
And treat those two teams just the same.

If you can make one heap of all your bedclothes
And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,
And miss, and start again with the linen skip nearer.

If you can talk with physicians and keep your patience,
Or walk with Consultant Surgeons - nor lose the common touch.

If neither doctors nor nursing colleagues can hurt you,
If all colleagues count with you, but none too much.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth
Of Nursing process documentation,
Yours is the Hospital and everything that's in it,

And what is more, you'll be
An ITU trained nurse, my friend.

· Kim Hudson has been in nursing for over 20 years in both primary and secondary care in Birmingham. She has officially spent half her life in the NHS.