I had a sticker on the back of my car that said "hospice nurse". I have found that even with a gps, at times the gps isn't all that accurate and in town Atlanta-folks aren't real patient; so I was tired of getting honked at, so I put a sticker on the back of my car that said "hospice nurse." I've had the sticker on my car for at least a year.
Fast forward to a new patient with brain mets (she swears she doesn't have cancer, it's "all that radiation they gave me that is killing me...) The grandaughter was commenting how cute my car was with antlers for christmas and a rudolph nose on the front of the car. Patient asked her grandaughter "how do you know it was the hospice nurses car?" Grandaughter replies "because it said so on the back of her car." Now patient gets angry, calls the office saying "now all my neighbors know my business." ((patient lives in a large apartment complex, so it's not like it was a single family dwelling and i've never had anyone complain in the last year)).
In addition, some of the questions the social worker asked her insulted her "it's none of her business how far I went in school--that has nothing to do with how intelligent I am." anywhoo, now she only wants a home health aide to visit, she doesn't want ANY nursing visits or chaplain or social worker to visit (frankly, I don't know how we are going to keep her even with her diagnosis as if a nurse isn't supervising care, how can we keep an aide going...).
Here is the thing. After she called the office, my administrator says I have to take the sticker off of my car as this could be a "hippa violation." How is this any different from a sticker that says "chaplain", or any other profession. What about companies that have magnetic advertisements for their company with the company name and phone number?
I took the sticker off of my car, but in protest, as there is no policy delineating that a nurse or any other profession isn't allowed to have a sticker with said profession on their personal transportation.
What about our uniforms that clearly state "hospice nurse" and the company name, and of course we are required to wear our badges to all visits.
Any comments are greatly appreciated. I mean, I am PROUD of what I do for a living. I make a difference.
