The Bearing Ring

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

The article in Nursing News about how hospitals could lose funding if they get low "grades" from "consumers" reminded me of the bearing ring.

This is a harness placed on a horse that forces the horse to carry its head up. When pulling a heavy load, the natural tendency is to lower the head. So working horses hated and often rebelled against this cruel device.

I think I read of this in "Black Beauty", the story of a horse's life. The horse passed to various owners. he worked as a taxi horse and various other horse jobs until he came to be owned by a wealthy woman who wanted him to stand up and look good. Even a horse has strength limitations.

I can't help but think of us nurses as the horses. We wear the bearing ring of inhuman, dangerous assignments, no breaks, forced OT, disrespect from every corner, now this threat of our employer being shut down if we don't cause them to get 10's.

Good comparison?

[canesdukegirl, BSN, RN]

Very insightful. When my husband sees that I am falling asleep in my supper, he tells me how mad he is that I am being worked like "a government mule".

But I don't HAVE to work as hard as I do...but I continue to do so. If my synapses were firing like they should, I would come up with some flowery prose as to how nurses should not be the sacrificial lambs at the Press Ganey altar, but I am...tired.

[Rob72, ASN, RN]

P*i*ss Gag-me

Fixed that.:) I take some small consolation in the fact that useless MBAs will be a large percentage of tangenital deaths when the "switch is flicked", and our First World become a member of the Turd World overnight. They little realize the fragility of their theoretical structure...