What is with these martyrs?

[oramar]

I was pulled to ICU just to assist, I did just nursing assistant type stuff. Didn't mind at all. However they had five patients with 2 ICU nurses. Let me tell you things were wild. An admission was on the way. The supervisor came and asked how things were. I spoke the truth, "totally overwhelming." She said the rest of the hospital was quiet and she would stay and take the admission. Would you believe one of the nurses spoke up and said, "Oh, I will take the admission, you don't have to do it". You got to be kidding me. I restated my case and the supervisor did stay. What would we have done without the extra pair of hands I don't know.

[chris_at_lucas_RN, RN]

Originally posted by Agnus

Did you know until good ol' Flossy Nightingale nurses were primairly MEN.

I thought before Flo nurses were hookers and drunks 'cause nobody else wanted to take care of the smelly old sick!?

...I'm with the side that opts for safety being the defining issue. If I get pulled from one unit to another, it's because they are short handed, not because my already-short-handed unit needed or wanted to be more strapped.

And if I DO get pulled some place, and what they need me for is below the scope of my practice, I hope to heck I just do what they need!

Thanks for the list of qualities and characteristics of martyrs. I'm planning on smacking somebody with that the next time they call me one for doing the next right/nice thing.

Love you guys!

[Agnus]

I don't wish to see flow of information cut off either. Todd it is not so much that you state opinions. It is that you state things as fact which you have not researched.

This makes your post come across as though you are a know it all. Being a know it all is really OK provided you really do.

Tis better to ask a question than to assume that you know something just because it seems that something is a fact or that you heard something.

You are a smart guy. There is a lot to nursing history. It is not what most of us assumed when we started school.

Perhaps as you go on in your career you will take advantages to learn about the wonderful independent pioneers in this field.

I am sorry this was not part of your curiculum.

For example there are a lot of different myths floating around about the very contraversial person of F. Nightengale.

She did some good. And she was very human and everything she did was not noble.

She lived in the victorian erra. Much of what she did and advocated stemed from the social norms of the day.

We cannot blame her for that. We are a product of our time. However, we need to look at this history to understand how and why things evolve as they do.

What was good in her day does not necessairly hold true today. Nursing is a profession that historically and traditionally holds much of its practices because of tradition rather than baseing it on science or other measures of effect.

We have come a long way and have a longer way to go. Clouding our outlook and identity with myth and traditions that have no real positive value hinder that progress.

To dispel the myth we need to educate ourself with the facts ranther than continue to spread myth.

You are correct in one respect as there was a time when the MD did control and dictate the practice of nursing. Yet, to say that is true or even desirable today is myth.

[SmilingBluEyes]

^5 angus!

[Agnus]

Originally posted by chris_at_lucas

I thought before Flo nurses were hookers and drunks 'cause nobody else wanted to take care of the smelly old sick!?

Love you guys!

This belief comes about because the women who Nightengale trained were of lower class. She if you recall was from a refined wealthy family. Lower class women of the day were the only ones likely to seek paid employment.

A woman of Florences social status would not be seeking work careing for the "smelly old sick" . Neither would they be seeking out other types of employment.

More likely they would be seeking to hire people to care for thier sick and to care for their homes and personal needs.

Consequently she had her work cut out. She was sometimes faced with hookers and alcoholics seeking employment as nurses. As they were part of the lower class.

However, nursing was pretty much a male domamin since the middle ages and until florence's time.

It is sad that though Florence is mentioned briefly in our schools that even the professors who mention her are not educated about her.

[efy2178]

I find this conversation very interesting. How many on this board are really nurses (I have a problem with an RN who believes physician's should dictate nursing practice)? For those of you who believe physicians should dictate nursing practice you need to read your professional association's Code of Ethics.

Nurses are first and formost the patient advocate. I believe some nurses get this confused in their attempt to go along to get along. You are not the nursing supervisor's advocate. It is not your job to make life easier for administration, it is your job legally, ethically and professionally to advocate for the patient. That may mean refusing an assignment that is immpossible to complete or jeopardizes patient care. The hospital has to supply adequate nursing care. Sometimes nurses have to stick up for themselves and their patients in or to get even the most basic care for their patients.

After 18 years of nursing in many different ares, I can tell you that some administrators will assign patients in a way that will max out a nurse. But when you burn the candle at both ends the is no reserve. ICU's get admissions--that is a fact. This needs to be taken into account at the beginning of the shift, not simply gambling to see it they will get an admission. In this situation, demanding more nurses to help is justified.

It may not be nice to label a nurse a 'martyr' but anyone with experience immediately understands what is meant by that label.

[Agnus]

efy2178, well said.

We have trouble asking for help and we have trouble accepting help.

It it the administrations responsibility to provide adequate staffing. Too often we have (I'm sure) all see where adminsitration attempts to instill guilt on the nurse to solve and or ignore this problem for administration. When I say ignore I mean to pretend that there is no problem and that it is my fault if I can't get it all done. i. e. keep silent.

I recall an incident where I was charge and had a staffing crisis in the middle of my shift. Along with calling every nurse we had I called our DON. I told the DON that I was calling everyone and added that I would not guilt them into responding to a problem that was not theirs. He in his golrious ignorance said, "they should feel guilty." Unfortuantely he did not feel guilty at all himself as he came in yes, but he did not pick up the slack or even work to find staff. He hid out playing computer games.

Stating he was supplying "moral support"