...or is it me? Maybe I'm the big baby instead. I'll explain...
I've noticed in the past five years out of the 20 that I've been an RN, that the public is more and more difficult to deal with. I have found that nowadays, there are more people in denial, more people who do not accept the facts of a situation and attempt to second guess us all the time without any kind of knowledge base in the field. I get disrespected, treated like a potential criminal and with suspicion all of the time, rudeness and threats and frankly, I am sick to death of it. Mind you, I am very nice and cordial to my patients and families, never had a complaint lodged at all against me or my care in all the years I've done this (luckily), but anymore, that doesn't seem to matter at all. A few days ago I had to deal with two very difficult families again, and it just drains the life out of me. Their demands alot of the times are unreasonable, the long conversations trying to appease them in a nice way go unheeded (after spending a long time and neglecting my other duties to deal with their anger and frustration and try to make them feel better), the threats to sue anger me (although that didn't happen this last time, that threat is always in the air), and I keep wondering why on earth am I allowing myself to be abused in this way.
Then I will calm down a bit and try to be empathetic towards them. Then in a way, I can understand the suspicions. Just turn on the TV and see all the news about medical mistakes and how many people have died from them (although I personally am suspicious of that number). How healthcare has deteriorated. The public does not trust us anymore, and when I try to look at it from their point of view, then I can see why. I guess I would be the same way.
But at the same time, I experience the disrespect and rudeness so many times, and I'm just so tired of being treated this way. I feel too this part of it is just a sign of the times...people in general, not just in health care, are rude and disrespectful nowadays. Plain bad manners and selfishness (at least in my opinion) are epidemic in our society. Alot of the times they do not look at their loved ones best interest, they are only interested in easing their own pain. Such as when you have a terminally ill or and elderly, chronically ill patient that has suffered through so many medical procedures, but the family wants everything done only to ease or prevent their own pain, not at all looking at the best interest of their loved one. Death is not an option, it is a failure, and in my world nobody is going to die on me and cause me pain. Even though everyone must die at some time. They will interrupt care and cause a scene and want their own needs met, not even thinking that they are interrupting their own family members care and the care of others by acting this way, taking up our time to calm them down and neglecting patient care to ease their pain and discontent.
I remember many years ago, when we were trusted and looked up to, and oh were those the good ole' days. Not that nobody at all should question us, I don't mean it that way. But there was trust in us, in general. If there were questions, people were very respectful, there was more time to explain and do proper teaching to them, and they were satisfied most of the time after we talked with them. People got for the most part good care. There weren't the mistakes that I see today. I see such a deterioration in care nowadays, nurses and docs are all pushed to their limit so much so that it is no wonder the quality has declined. You can be a great nurse but under these conditions, you can be looked at like in incompentent idiot by the public because you didn't get things to them on time, or be there as much as they want you to be. You can have a patient that has some crumbs in their sheets or the leg is uncovered, and when the families come in, they will go ballistic thinking their loved one was neglected and not taken care of properly. Never mind that you had a code just down the hall; never mind you had an emergency CT scan you had to accompany the patient to. Never mind that you were trying to console a family when their loved one passed away. Oh no, those crumbs on the sheets or that uncovered leg means you are an awful nurse and neglectful, and there will be h*ll to pay for this one. I'm gonna make a big scene so they won't do this again. Absolutely no consideration in what has been going on and other priorities. Then when I think about it a little more, then I think of how the families must feel so out of control when they can't trust their own health care providers and must do whatever they can, say whatever they can, within their own knowledge base,to protect their ill loved ones. They will focus on such little things and use that as a scale of judgement on good care and terrible care, and cannot focus or empathize with your bad shift, because they do not understand our roles as nurses, don't understand our culture in the hospital and how things are run, and how we must prioritize our care.
So you see, I go back on forth on this...I get so tired of being treated like crap, yet I can see why. I guess maybe I am too sensitive or I need to learn to deal with this better and not take it so personally. As much as I try taking my time and talking with my patients and families, I can't always do the best, most thorough job with it because of other pressing issues; I cannot neglect my other patients but alot of the times I am distracted so much by this that I cannot watch them like I should and get behind on my work; I sometimes think how a potential bad outcome or a patient could be deteriorating quickly while I am busy dealing with the angry "customers".
What triggered my little vent here? Dealing with a patient's son who sobbed and cried and acted like a child because Dad had some hematuria. He was well aware that Dad has a poor heart (EF 15%), advanced COPD, but not a concern at all about that, we weren't able to stop the bleeding soon enough and that means we are bad, bad, bad. Mind you, this patient's hemoglobin didn't drop, was on a Murphy drip to ease it, urology consult involved, it was slowly improving but was taking longer than I had expected; docs were aware of the situation and he was being treated for it. We were dealing with the problem and it would be solved, no matter how much we talked with him, this didn't even matter at all. It must be stopped and stopped NOW, not in an hour or several hours later (McDonalds Mentality). Dealing with a 50 year old crying and sobbing man saying "I can't stand to see Dad in pain again" was pathetic.Dad was having ZERO OUT OF TEN pain. Nada. None. I know that sounds cold hearted, but son just would NOT see anything else. We almost had to put his dad on a vent, and he still isn't out of the woods with that yet.Son did not understand that hematuria usually can be stopped, that this problem was minor compared to his other problems (not that hematuria like that is minor, but once again, we were treating it, and my top focus was keeping this man off the vent and keeping his hemodynamically stable) , but not much we can do to stop advanced heart disease and end stage COPD that will really kill him. And yes, this was explained to him several times. He threw a complete fit, and I had just had it by then after being yelled at on the phone by another family member because the doctor didn't talk to them at the exact time they wanted them to.
I don't have any answers...wish I did. Thanks for reading and letting me vent. :) I feel a bit better now...until the next situation, LOL!
