I Saw that Commerical Again!

Nurses General Nursing

Published

There is a commerical for a walk in medicial clinic in my town Its run by an ER doc so he call it an ER. The thing that bugs me is his slogan/motto:

"Don't wait on health care. Let health care wait on you."

He promises that you will receive a warm smile a blanket a wait no longer than 20 minutes. I was so irritated I threw a pillow at the TV. My DH was shocked. What wrong with you? I tried to explain to my techno-geek hubby that the 1st time someone has to wait 21 minutes, there will be he** to pay. That he is creating unrealist expectations and if he got a real emergency, he is still several blocks from a real ER and help.

This is were the entitlement crowd gets their ideas & bal**. This another example of putting the emphasis on the wrong thing. The clinic is next door to McD maybe he got his customer service ideas from them.

Really I LOVE my job but sometimes I don't like parts of it.

Where does this puritanical attitude that patients and their families are not deserving of comfort and consideration come from? Are nurses that angry with them?

OK I'm not saying that patients and families don't deserve some comfort and consideration. I object to the EXPECTATION the ad creates. The customer is always right. The subtler message that the "nurse" is a mindless passer out of comfort and cheer.

I'm a NICU nurse. I have no trouble getting pillows for mommies and daddies or distracting siblings with crayons and coloring books. But if I tell a Mom that baby is having a bad day can't be held today, she needs to trust me and know that I know what I'm talking about. I'm more than a "pillow pusher".

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Specializes in ER, NICU, NSY and some other stuff.

The retail boutique clinics cater to the well insured crowd. If you don't have your co-pay they will also send you on the the real ER with that same smile....sans warm blanket.

They are the latest thing around here also. If they are taking some of the load off of my ER more power to them.

But, where do they send you once you need a CT, or are a r/o appy, or have any ST elevation.......

To ME

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Specializes in ER, NICU, NSY and some other stuff.
Where does this puritanical attitude that patients and their families are not deserving of comfort and consideration come from? Are nurses that angry with them?

I do not expect to be waited on, but sitting with my child in the ER for 8 hours before he was admitted, I sure appreciated the chair I had to sit in, the vending machines in the waiting room and the odd magazine to look through. The nursing care and respiratory care were top-notch. The doctors very thorough, and that is the reason we were there.

So what if a doctor wants to open his clinic with a little pampering thrown in? If he delivers on his promise, and provides good medical care, he will do fine.

It is not about "deserving" of comfort and consideration.

I do all that I can to keep my patients comfy and cared for. BUT, If you think I am gonna stop providing NURSING care to go and fetch you or your grandma a latte then you have surely lost your mind. It is my job to provide as you said "top-notch NURSING care" not room service, or butt kissing service.

The difference is that many persons we encounter DO expect to be waited on. These would be the ones DEMANDING a warm blankt, for themselves and their enterouge on the way back to the room. DEMANDING a wheelchair for their family member with R small finger pain. THen this same group will say "OH there you are we thought you had forgot about us, the doctor said you would be RIGHT in" on an order that has been written less than 10 minutes previously.

So what the OP is trying to express is her frustration in feeding the misperception that we will be waiting in the driveway with a wheelchair a warm blanket and a big syringe full of the narcotic of your choice.

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

'Tis one thing to have a patient ask for a blanket if s/he is cold. It is quite another when I bring her some water AND juice to take with her Percocet (because I'm not sure which she'll prefer) and she looks at me like I'm dirt and says, "I'd HOPED you would bring me hot tea."

I really do try to spoil my patients, even just a little bit. I really do. I try to put myself in their shoes and think that gosh, something like that would be really nice for me if I were them. But the minute they start being rude & snapping their fingers at me, I get less than thrilled.

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Specializes in Mostly LTC, some acute and some ER,.

Nothing irritates me more that being whistled at like a dog, called "Hey! Waitress!", or any other demeaning way of summoning help. I just want to scream!!! I am not anyones dog or waitress . . . I do not take that all that well either.

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Yes but also about Nursing. What I didn't say earlier, is that his name is all over the clinic and his lab coat with MD. But the "nurse" who is handing out the warm smile, blanket etc has no name and no ID as in what kind of nurse she is : CNA, LPN, RN. So it creates a false image about what my job is (handing out blankets,handing you over to the doc) vs reality .

OOOOOOOOOOOOO....Now I understand completely. That makes all the difference. I still embrace the concept of these clinics, but certainly not at the expense of portraying an individual in scrubs (most likely a female) as a nice little handmaiden and leaving the title open to public interpretation (i.e., nurse). :angryfire

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