Nurses afraid to care for AIDS patients.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Jan 10, 2003

Originally posted by Stargazer
May I have your permission to cut and paste this paragraph in any thread I deem fit? It would make me feel soooo much better.

Please don't use it on me. I'm the worlds worst speller/typist. But I mean well. LOL

Stargazer · Jan 10, 2003

Oh, 3rdShift, honey, not to worry! I know YOU'RE edumacated. :chuckle

baseline · Jan 10, 2003

Hey ... remember the CEO who responded to that email so gloriously?....I think this is him!!!!!! LOL

RNpupil · Jan 10, 2003

:kiss :roll

louloubell1 · Jan 10, 2003

It's a very broad generalization you make, chap, when you ask "Why do nurses. . . (insert whatever negative comment you like here)?". Maybe you should ask things like, "Why do nurses selflessly choose to work in a field where they will come in contact with scenarios & diseases that would scare the living daylights out of most people? What is it that makes these people (nurses) care so much that they will risk their health and even their lives to work in the service of other people, to do things that are often gross, frightening, & extremely stressful?"

I work in a large inner city hospital & we certainly see our share of people suffering from diseases like HIV & hep C. In my time as an RN, & in the preceding time I spent as a PCA, I have never once seen an RN "run when its time to do personal care for an AIDS patient." (Nor have I seen them run when it's time to clean up poop, but that's another thread entirely). That is absolutely not to say that I have not known nurses, PCAs, and all manner of other health care personnel to sometimes be afraid of the situations and diseases they encounter.

I can remember being extremely frightened the first time I had to do a needle stick on a patient who was dying with end stage AIDS. I was nervous, in the same way that I have been nervous everytime I have ever held a loaded gun. Though I know a series of events must happen before my gun in my hand will fire (I have to chamber a bullet, I have to take the safety off, I have to apply significant pressure to the trigger), it is okay that I am still scared that the thing in my hand has the power to end a life. After all, accidents do happen. Sometimes deadly accidents happen. That is the same way I think of many of the diseases we encounter in nursing. Universal precautions is a set of procedures that should help me avoid getting hurt by the loaded gun, but sometimes accidents happen. Sometimes, even though universal precautions have been used, exposures still occur. That prospect is frightening.

Hope you're understanding what I'm saying here. The nurses that I know, and have worked with, may have some of the same anxieties about some diseases as I have, and that is okay, as long as our responsibilities to the patient in need of our help are professionally fulfilled. I just find it hard to believe that all the nurses you come in contact with are so overwhelmed by their fear of these contagions that they run from their responsibility to care for the patient.

I'd also like to say that I agree with you Happeewendy. I don't care how a person got the condition they got. It is always unacceptable to treat the patient poorly. I don't care if they had sex with the entire metropolitan area of St. Louis leading to the contraction of a disease like AIDS, I don't care if they smoked 3 packs of cigs a day for 50 years leading to the development of lung CA, I don't care if they had an abortion and they are now suffering from life threatening septicemia. I don't care. That patient, that person, is still deserving of my respect as a human being, and as a creation of God. I don't have to agree with what a person has done or does to empathize with their plight. That being said, I do have to check myself sometimes when I find that I'm thinking too much about the mistakes a person made which brought them to a state of "disrepair" shall we call it, because I am only human, Christian or not, and being a Christian and one who will openly tell you that I am a Christian, doesn't mean that I never fall prey to being petty, unkind, or judgemental, and it doensn't mean that I am 100% successful at the whole love thy neighbor way of life. If I were that perfect, I wouldn't need to be Christian. I'd be God.

Sorry for such a long post, but as some of you know, I'm stuck in the house on bedrest, & I haven't a whole lot to do. *Sigh*.

Be blessed!

baseline · Jan 10, 2003

chap...lie down before you hurt yourself...........

RN2B2005 · Jan 10, 2003

Ah, 3rd Shift Guy, I promise not to whack you upside the head with a dictionary...I'm really a mild-mannered grammarian unless provoked.

EmeraldNYL, BSN, RN · Jan 10, 2003

What a fabulous post RNLou, you said it so much better than I could have.

MiddleT · Jan 10, 2003

I am a hospice RN and some of my most wonderful and memorable pt.s were Dx. with AIDS. None of the nurses I work with were fearful. You just remember Univeral Precautions!!!! At the end of your clinicals you need to reevaluate if you really want to be a nurse.

MishlB · Jan 10, 2003

Originally posted by RN2B2005
Chap, honey, I know you're probably all excited by the attention you've received from this and other posts, but you need to settle down and let me explain a few things.

First, you need to understand that in ANY profession, there are going to be a few bad apples. In nursing, there aren't any more or any less than in any other profession. I have NEVER met a nurse who would "run" when an HIV+ patient or any other infectious disease patient needed care. I have difficulty believing that any nurse who did this would continue to be employed for long. Your perception of reality is not necessarily reality itself.

Second, do not come onto a bulletin board which was created by and is run by nurses and then expect to slam nurses without repercussions. If you wouldn't say it in person, don't say it on the boards.

Third, you need to crack a book or fifty and learn to write a coherent sentence before lashing out. You sound like an inarticulate idiot, so we must make the assumption that you ARE an inarticulate idiot.

Finally, all of your nonsense about being "positive" for TB is just that--nonsense. If you seroconverted after a documented exposure, it's more likely a coincidence than anything else--TB is astonishingly difficult to contract, which you would know if you used your nursing books for something other than paperweights. It sounds to me like you are fishing for a reason to sue your employer or your coworkers.

:wink2:

MishlB · Jan 10, 2003

Originally posted by chap2218
Look dont get your panties in a bunch. I want to here from you the ``professionals" what is going on. I was told by someone who was also going into nursing that they decided not to because of the AIDS epidemic and that she lost two brothers because of it.:chuckle :roll

And that's funny to you? (referring to the laughing faces...)

I think you are "hearing" the wrong information, or are simply meeting the wrong nurses. I have never seen any of that behavior. You sound a little immature (just my opinion).

Don't believe everything you hear...besides, if these things are happening, just do your best to NOT be THAT nurse. Don't lump us all together, please.

RNpupil · Jan 10, 2003

RN2B2005 GROW UP SIMPLE QUESTION. IF ITS NOT ALL TRUE JUST CLEAR UP THAT NOT ALL NURSES ARE LIKE THAT. YOU DONT HAVE TO DECLARE WAR ABOUT WHO IS ARTICULATE AND ALL THAT UNECESSARY TALK.