[brian]

Who better than a nurse, especially a nursing instructor, to judge the compassion and skill a hospital brings to patient care? And if the nurse is the mother of a teenage girl brought to the ER in agonizing pain, what she has to say is definitely worth reading.

As "Sister Nurse," Karen Madsen writes a monthly column for Stressed Out Nurses, an arm of hospital consultant HCPro. She is an assistant professor at Cox College of Nursing and Health Sciences in Springfield, Mo., and she is the mother of 15-year-old Grace. I was informed and moved by Madsen's account and offer it to you (edited slightly to be shorter than her two-part opus) as something more than just another cautionary tale:

I don't like this side of the bed. No, I take that back. I loathe this side of the bed. It scares me, it makes me angry, it makes me cry. I have no control over this side of the bed, I have little identity, I don't have much of a voice. All this and more ran through my mind as I sat at the bedside of my 15-year-old daughter recently. It had been a long time since I had been part of the patient equation of the hospital rather than the nurse. It was just as much fun as I remembered....

A few weekends ago, our daughter, Grace, came home from a school-sponsored trip pale and pouty. She can be dramatic, but is rarely pouty. I should have known then something was up or something was wrong. I checked her forehead with the inside of my right wrist, my trusty mother thermometer. No fever. So I basically told her to suck it up and quit whining. Later that night, she had several episodes of vomiting and I began to think food poisoning. Still, she had no fever, no localized pain, certainly no pain on either side of her abdomen. "Relax, "I thought. "There are a million viruses out there right now. She'll be better in the morning." And she was. Or at least I believed she was. She woke up, ate a bite or two of breakfast, and had another nap....

Full Story:
http://health.usnews.com/blogs/comar...urse-kind.html

[oramar]

"they sat at their desk and ordered food", I guess this educator shares managment's opinion that nurses unlike the rest of the human race do not need to eat

[Olli]

The key is to treat every patient the same way you want that some other N would treat your family member. And sure patients see if you are just doing your job or doing the best you can

[Sweetooth EMT-P, RN]

I can empathize with this mother; howevere working a fairly busy ER I understand why she may have waited forfour hours. In the ER i work in we sometimes have a 5 and 6 hour wait, nothing we can do about it if we have no beds. We do try and do labs if the wait is going to be really long. Also does this mother expect nurses and other staff members to starve and never laugh or smile at work?? Come on, that I cannot empathize with.... We are human and we do need to eat and we do need humor to help us get through the day.

Sweetooth

[Altra]

"So, yes, I was one of "those" mothers. I tried hard not to be but about 24 hours into our stay, I gave up. While I tried to be nice about some things, I wanted what I wanted and I wanted it right now."

Pretty much sums it up.

[hikernurse]

You know, it is frustrating and scary to watch your child hurt and not to be able to do anything about it. It's a terrible feeling.

But, sometimes I think people don't realize that "angels of mercy" are also very human people at work. We eat, we laugh, we need to pee--just as everyone else does at work. I think most nurses do care about their patients--otherwise, the job would be too difficult, but I think it is hard for parents to understand that we have lives and relationships with family and colleagues (darned if I can spell it right) outside of caring for their child. That doesn't mean we don't care, though.

I don't intend this to be harsh or to make it sound as if nurses are uncaring, but I think sometimes we just come at things with different perspectives.

The article was an interesting read .

[Spidey's mom]

I've worked most of my career in a small rural hospital where I've done med/surg, labor and delivery, post-partum, ER, pre-op and post-op . . .

I've also worked in a larger ER.

And I've smiled and laughed with my co-workers in front of patients. And eaten too.

But I've been on the other side when my son was in writhing pain on a gurney in the ER and I realized how it looks to the patients to see that.

In reading the comments after the article, I see someone else noticed that the mom said "blow" into an incentive spirometer and I thought "no, you suck on it like you are drinking a thick milkshake through a straw". But someone else posted that there are incentive spirometers where you do blow . . . hmmm.

steph

[Miami NightNurse]

Originally Posted by oramar

"they sat at their desk and ordered food", I guess this educator shares managment's opinion that nurses unlike the rest of the human race do not need to eat

I don't think it was the ordering of food. It was their non caring attitude

[BlueRidgeHomeRN]

I am not and have never been an ER nurse, but I have been on the "other" side of the bedrails personally and with my children.

I understand the author's concern for her child, almost any mother would feel the same way. I wonder, however, how much of her anger is projected at herself for missing the prodromal signs of the problem in the first place?

[bollweevil]

Sounds like some serious lack of communication before they got into the main ER. Glad it turned out ok.

I think the nurses should eat, drink, and be merry but do it all out of the patients' view and earshot. And they need to communicate clearly and timely, including referencing why they might be yukking it up while the patients are in agony. And they should try to remember or be aware of how scared and miserable their patients are. It's just a routine day of work to nurses. It's a fearsome, excruciatingly painful ordeal to patients and those who love them. And we all know perfectly well how we would feel if we were the care receivers, not the givers of same.