Just frustrated at poor attitudes in the general public.

OriginalWmn · May 24, 2004

I get frustrated with it, too, and I haven't been doing this for a lifetime. Some days it just feels like it. LOL! I don't know what to tell you except that there are just some people you can't please, but that doesn't mean that the majority of nurses I know wouldn't die trying. And even in the limited number of years that I've been doing it, it seems that people have gotten more and more entitled. The media coverage has made the public more aware of the nursing shortage, but in some instances this has caused people to become more demanding and abrasive in making those demands.

Sorry I can't be more helpful. Just wanted you to know that I know how you feel.

jemb · May 24, 2004

Most folks are uninformed about anything medical, hospitals, and roles and responsibilities of healthcare staff. The frequent result is unreasonable expectations and blame, and basic dissatisfaction with the whole system.

Some are more reasonable after they are informed. Others just don't want to know the facts and have a sense of entitlement regardless.

I usually make an attempt to educate people, but some would rather complain than know what's really going on.

movealong · May 25, 2004

Sorry to vent. I also visited the med student board, Geesh.

Anyway, I forgot what I have known for a long time: as nurses we get caught in the middle alot. We can get it from patients and their families, and from doctors as well.

Dixiecup · May 25, 2004

I'm just sad and frustrated. On a different message board (for a different personal interest of mine), I got to see someone vent about the poor care their family member received. Alot of the issues were centered around medications and their side effects. Now I am not personally involved as far as I live multiple states away from where this happened.
What was worse was to see some of the reponses. One person even said doctors write prescriptions based on what drug reps tell them about drugs. And I KNOW this person, she is not a stupid person.
I don't know about you guys, but drug reps didn't even have access to most of the doctors I worked for. And I wonder about drug reps, how long will they last? In this day and age of PBM's and formularies for most insurance companies, do you see drug reps as becoming a thing if the past?
It's tough to try to explain medications, side effects and how sometimes pros and cons of some drug therapies must be weighed, especially to lay people.
And it's hard to read when you see messages like "make the nurse" do this or that. Or if they would only "do their job". They have a very poor attitude and it's just so frustrating to me. I know I am taking it personally. But I have always worked hard, and lots of times really gone out of my way to help patients ad their families. I've spent a lifetime at it.

Sorry, but I think drug reps are the wave of the future and will probably be the most influential thing in the "next new drug". Alot of people couldn't get their meds if it weren't for all those mountains of free samples.

Energizer Bunny · May 25, 2004

I have to say that yes, I do rely on free samples a lot!!!!

But, I also want to say to the OP...that I am not a nurse yet and I want you and all other nurses to know how much I appreciate you! I have very rarely ran into a nurse that was not nice or caring when dealing with my family as patients.

deathnurse · May 25, 2004

Nursing is the most well-respected occupation in the public opinion polls. But it doesn't appear that they are polling the patients and visitors in the hospital.

Patients love nurses until they need them. Then, they require their exclusive presence to meet all of their needs hand and foot, to the exclusion of that nurses other responsibilities.

Doctors need nurses and resent their phone calls and updates.

Visitors intrepret a nurse as having all of the information that was ever acquired throughout a patients lifetime locked up in the nurses brain somehow. And, they also expect you to wait on them hand and foot.

ChrisA · May 25, 2004

And yeah, there's a lot of people who think that the doctors are getting too much influence from the drug reps. I mean, look how much advertising there is on the TV and in magazines these days. Ten years ago you'd see, what, basic OTC analgesics advertised? Now it's every prescription drug under the sun! And there are articles about doctors being sent on cruises by the drug companies, and being sent free stuff. Is it any wonder that the perception is that prescriptions are influenced primarily by which rep chewed the doctor's ear off last?

I hear your frustration, though. You want to come out to Seattle and talk to my peer group? They basically distrust western medicine, and talk about how they'd rather take herbs and get acupuncture for every little thing, because they'd never trust one of those harm-causing "western" doctors to treat them. *sheesh*

SCRN1 · May 25, 2004

I don't know how drug companies in other states do it, but here, they will hire someone only if they have a Bachelor's or Master's degree...in ANY field. But, they won't hire an LPN or someone with an ADN who doesn't have one of those degrees in something. Does that make sense? Wouldn't you rather hear about a drug from someone who was at least an LPN than from someone has a Masters in some field outside of medicine?

susanna · May 25, 2004

And it's hard to read when you see messages like "make the nurse" do this or that. Or if they would only "do their job". They have a very poor attitude and it's just so frustrating to me. I know I am taking it personally. But I have always worked hard, and lots of times really gone out of my way to help patients ad their families. I've spent a lifetime at it.

I dunno. This is interesting. Here in New Jersey people are SUPEREDUCATED about drugs and about medicine. Pharmacy industry is what feeds NJ's economy. I know ALOT of pharmacy students.

BUT, the problem is that all of our doctors are gettting sued and leaving. Sigh, I don't know if the population really is too smart, it thinks its smarter than it really is, or if people are just really revengeful against our doctors. Anyway, there's been a mass exodus of NJ doctors for a while now. Its scary.

It scares me the way people don't think healthcare professionals "do their job". Like, you spend XXX amount of years in school and training and $$$ to learn how to help people because you think its good to do so and then you're probably going to get sued by some angry patient that wants to take it out on you? I try not to think about that when I study because it makes me feel depressed.

BRANDY LPN · May 25, 2004

Heck your post made me feel depressed. (that is not a slam a flame or anything other than the truth)