Disclaimer: I don't own Carter nor do I own Abby. I just borrow them for a little personal entertainment and a little creativity outlet. There is no money made off of my short stories.

This is a very short story, but to all those out there who are nurses, my thanks go to you. You are often unappreciated and overworked, but there are those of us out there who do appreciate what you do everyday and to me there is no such thing as just a nurse. And even though I am striving to be a doctor, to me it's the nurses who work the front lines every day that make the greatest difference in people's lives.

It's what they don't teach you in med school that counts.
There's no such thing as just a nurse.

"Are you happy just being a nurse?" Carter asked her, "you can go back to med school."
Carter and Abby had , had this conversation several time. Her answer was always the same, "you know there's nothing wrong with being a nurse." She replied.
"No there's no Abby, but you are gifted and would make an excellent doctor if you would just go back to school and finish."
"No Carter you just don't understand." She said to him getting lost in her thoughts, "It's what they don't teach you in med school that counts."
"What do you mean Abby." He asked looking at her.
"You see, you seem them as patients, it's your job to take care of their illnesses, you have to see so many in a day they get lost in the shuffle of things. I have 8 maybe 9 patients that I care for in day. What they don't teach you is, how to hold the hand of a scared little child who has just been told she has to have her appendix taken out, to be the one there to reassure her that everything is going to be just fine, that it's going to hurt but there's medicine that will make her feel better, holding a mom's hand, helping her to breath, to push her new little one into the world. Being there and seeing the joy in her eyes as she holds her newborn baby for the first time. To be there when two people become more than husband and wife, they become parents. Teaching her how to feed that new baby from her breast. Sitting with an elderly woman as her husband takes his last breaths of life and letting her know that it's alright to cry to miss him, because she loved him with all her heart and giving her your shoulder to cry on. You see all of this every day but you don't have the time to take to be with them. You help them, yes, but a doctor doesn't have the kind of time that a nurse does. After you leave I'm the one who helps a parent understand that even though they did everything right, took the best care of a child that they could, gave a baby their baby all their love, sometimes god has to call them back early to be with him. Letting them now that it's okay to feel the raw pain and to cry, guiding them to lean on each other." She said taking a deep breath, "Showing people how to learn to live with what ever illness has struck them, helping them come to terms that they might die, or that they are going to die, showing them how to let go and make peace with everything. Giving them a glimmer of hope in night of darkness. I might be in your eyes just a nurse, but to those who I help I am so much more. I am a friend, a confidant, a rock in the their lost sea. Someone who can take the time to guide them, to answer their questions. I am a teacher, showing them how to take care of themselves, their loved ones, how to learn to let go, to grieve, to live."
He smiled at her. "You are not just a nurse. There is no such thing as just a nurse."