I will start off by explaining that I am a nursing student. I got into nursing because I love to work hard, work on my feet, be challenged, and most importantly help others. I am planning a trip to India to volunteer at an HIV clinic, because for me it’s not about money, It’s about helping others and giving them support when the need it the most.
This weekend, a close friend of mine assaulted me. I had no idea that would happen, and it was emotionally traumatizing. I called the police, but 15 minutes later they still had not arrived. I asked my friend to drive me to the hospital because I was having vision disturbances and vertigo, and I was worried about having major head trauma.
My friend dropped me off and went back to her house to wait for the police and tell them where we were. I was alone, and taken back immediately because of my facial contusions and bleeding from my nose. The nurse who greeted me was unpleasant to say the least. The first thing out of her mouth was “Why did you let this happen? Why did they do this to you?” She began to lecture me, as I sat bleeding, dizzy, and unable to see about making better friends.
I don’t do drugs, I don’t hang out with “shady” people, this isn’t something I ever foresaw happening to me. No one who knew this person thought in a million years he would assault me. A minute later I went to the bathroom and I forgot where I was. I was extremely dizzy and began to panic. I walked out into the hallway, walked up to a staff member and said “I need help, something is wrong with me, I don’t know where I am” She shouted at me to go back to my room. I didn’t know where “my room” was, so I stood there “I can’t breathe” I said. I was having a panic attack.
She took me back to my room and said “You are in the hospital. There is nothing wrong with you. The doctor will come in to evaluate you soon. Take this” and handed me two pills. I asked what they were and she said “Calm down, Just take it!” and left the room.
5 minutes later, two nurses had an argument outside my room about one nurse who “had an attitude” they began to curse at each other, shouting about some other situation, not taking into consideration there was a terrified victim of assault three feet away, hearing all of this.
Maybe my friend should have stayed with me, but she left because she wanted to police to know where I was. She came right back with them about a half hour later. The nurse acted like my friend dropped me off and left me there because she had no respect for me. She acted like I did this to myself, telling me I needed a “new group of friends”
Just this experience is making me think maybe I don’t want to go into nursing. If I had been working, I would have told that nurse to calm down, and to talk to the patient like a person. She had no idea what my situation was, and yet she chose to lecture me when I was scared and vulnerable. The nurses fighting outside my room was just totally unprofessional. I had no idea someone who worked so hard to get this degree would act like that. I feel like if these are going to be my coworkers, then I don’t want to be in this field. I guess what I am hoping for is for someone to tell me not all hospital envoirnments are like that, and that we are allowed to be nice and caring to our patients. I don’t want to become bitter and unpleasant, like these nurses were. This whole experience was so humiliating; I wish I could have been treated with compassion.
Well thanks for your comments :). I actually feel a lot better now. I talked to a friend of mine who went through a very negative experience at the same hospital ER and then had a really great experience at another hospital. She said that that she was told the hospital is understaffed, and it makes sense that the nurses would be stressed out. I don't know if I will write a complaint, I would rather talk to the nurse herself, write her a letter of some sort.
I didn't want to take the meds without knowing what they were, but I was afraid if I didn't, the way she was shouting at me, that they would tie me to the bed or something! She honestly intimidated me. I wasn't out of control, but I was panicked. I still don't know what she gave me. When I was dismissed, A woman came in to get my insurance information, and I asked her to please find the nurse and find out what she gave me, and it never happened.
The doctor however, was kind and polite. The patient care tech asked me if I was pressing charges, when I said yes, she said "good", but other than that, I felt like I was treated like a peice of meat by the RN. I wasn't intoxicated or belligerent, maybe when they see assualt victims they usually are, I don't know. I wish I had an explination as to why I was treated me like that. I probably never will.
what i specifically asked was if this was normal occurrence. " i guess what i am hoping for is for someone to tell me not all hospital environments are like that, and that we are allowed to be nice and caring to our patients"............
i'm going out on a limb here.
i think that some posters are reacting in a manner that you didn't expect, because this seems like a rhetorical question. you must know that not all hospital environments are horrible. generalizations are never accurate. are you seriously asking if nurses are allowed to be nice and care about their patients!!???
if you simply wanted to vent about your experience, that would be one thing
but you come here as a student, asking for assurance from nurses, that all nurses aren't horrible (which is how i read your original question), and if they are all horrible (which you know they aren't) you don't want to be a nurse.
my guess is that you wanted validation/sympathy that you had a horrible experience.
well here: yep you did
as far as the question of whether you should stay in nursing and the field?
As I posted earlier, why is it that every time a poster comes on and tells a horrific story about abusive nurses, most nurses here don't doubt the story for a minute. Read the first four pages of this thread and you'll find barely 1-2 people who even gently voice doubt.
The OPs story is inconsistent. Some parts of it are ............sorry, unbelievable. Not the assault part. I'm not questioning that. Yet 95% of the posters here are ignoring their natural urge to question and posting unconditional support for an even that may or may not have happened.
Why hammer an imaginary nurse over a questionable event? Flame me too.
Yes, I was in the ER. It was Saturday Morning when this happened. I would say I understood if they were busy, but when I was there was only one person waiting in the waiting area. I went straight back to be treated, no wait. It didn't seem that hetic in there, but I understand when you work in an ER you are probably very stressed out.
Sometimes looks can be deceiving ... an empty waiting room doesn't mean the ED isn't full in the back! We had an empty waiting room the other night with a horrible trauma in the back that required a lot of resources. But regardless ... I strive to treat everyone as I want to be treated. The only time I've raised my voice to patients was when I was being physically grabbed or threatened by them (one guy punched me in the nose, a girl grabbed my wrist and twisted, etc.). Otherwise I just smile a lot. Sometimes I sing, but that's more like punishment for everyone...
Seriously, use any unprofessional behavior you encounter as a model of what NOT to do. Any rude nurse you meet won't be your last ... we're just human, after all, and it takes all kinds...
... posting unconditional support for an even that may or may not have happened.
Why hammer an imaginary nurse over a questionable event?
Wow.That is just plain mean. Here's the thing. It was not a "questionable event" in the mind of this young lady. She should get some therapy to deal with what was described as trauma. These are the things that PTSD are made of. As a nurse, but more importantly as a human being, if someone is traumatized I urge them to get support and therapy. It amazes me that we learn pain is not something we ever "question" and have to medicate according to protocol. But someone who happens to be a nursing student (and many women in general) get abused and assaulted and it becomes some kind of "she asked for it" "questionable" event that even now many are questioning.
There are SANE nurses who are the most amazing, educated in trauma, and helpful nurses I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Unfortunetely, not every hospital uses them. He said she said they did.....it is the perception of the poster that these things occured. She was traumatized enough that she was having panic attacks and was more than frightened and alone. Heartbreaking. Perhaps her experiece will open the eyes of the powers that be to train some of the nurses in the ER to be SANE nurses. Perhaps the poster herself will want to do that one day.
There are SANE nurses who are the most amazing, educated in trauma, and helpful nurses I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Unfortunetely, not every hospital uses them. He said she said they did.....it is the perception of the poster that these things occured. She was traumatized enough that she was having panic attacks and was more than frightened and alone. Heartbreaking. Perhaps her experiece will open the eyes of the powers that be to train some of the nurses in the ER to be SANE nurses. Perhaps the poster herself will want to do that one day.
I just felt like these nurses hated their jobs, and if I am right, then maybe I should look into something else in the medical area. It breaks my heart to feel this way.
Unfortunately, there are people who hate their job in every field. All we can really do is: report mistreatment and stand up for future patients, vow to be better and to take time off if we are the ones who are burning out, and advocate for patient rights. I would report this to the nurse manager and also on your Press Gainey survey should you receive one. You have come too far to let a horrible incident derail you. Better to make the difference you want to see in the profession.
As to the post speculating on the veracity of the OPs post: trauma can frequently alter perception. For days after my own wreck, I was confused and experienced poor recall. Whether the OP is/isn't truthful/consistent is really of very little concern in the big scheme of things. Yes, a few trolls enjoy posting inflammatory statements. I would rather err on the side of compassion. Will some people take advantage for their own trolling purposes/entertainment? Sure. But that speaks more to their own personal issues than anything else. As a note, the OP joined a year ago and has also made prior posts.
OP, I'm an ER RN with 4 yrs experience. I've taken care of a lot of patients who were battered or sexually assaulted. I worked 3 years in an absolutely insane ER on the south side of Chicago. I saw more batteries and SAs than I can count. On my worst nights -- when the ambulances wouldn't stop coming and coming and coming because all the nearby ERs were on ambulance bypass -- I have NEVER treated a patient the way you were treated, no matter WHY they came to the ER.
That said -- I can tell you that working in that kind of an ER can be unbelievably stressful and nurses do blow their top at times. I've never sworn at other nurses, but I've had arguments with them in front of patients -- like when other nurses had 1-2 rooms open and available for patients, but here comes Charge wheeling a patient to my room where I just discharged the previous patient and haven't even had time to clean the cart and put on fresh linens!
It sounds like your heart is in the right place. Please don't let the unprofessional behavior of these nurses deter you from nursing. I agree with the other posters who said, Use this to make yourself a better nurse than they were. Patients need people with your kind of heart. But make sure when you graduate from nursing school, you get a job somewhere with a long new-grad orientation. You will need it. Six months would be good. A year would be better. Don't let them talk you into coming off orientation early. Nursing school can never really prepare you for "real world" nursing. The gap is too huge. Your worst day as a nursing student will look like an easy day, once you are a "real nurse."
Regardless of how a patient presents, all that you described is just plain unprofessional behavior that makes all nurses look bad, when we're not all like that. OP, I think you know that. I hope all the replies saying that we're not all like that have validated your experience and made you feel a bit better.
The suggestions to get new friends, etc. are not something that should be said by any nurse to any assault patient. That's for a someone you're close to, to say to you with much more tact, well after the assault occurred and you're recovered or recovering. However, there are (and probably always will be) nurses who say stupid crap like that to assault and SA patients.
But if you go into nursing, you need to have your wits about you. Patients are unpredictable, especially psych patients, patients with dementia, post-ictal patients, etc. They may not be themselves because of drugs, psych issues, dementia, disorientation. They may try to assault you. I look at it like the way an injured dog you're trying to help may bite you: they often don't mean to do it (although some do), but they are scared, disoriented, in pain, or otherwise in distress, and they instinctively strike out. As a nurse, you need to be able to see these things coming, or you will get hurt. This is a separate, different kind of assault than what you experienced, but it is still interpersonal violence.
Believe it or not, most people about to commit violence give off clues in their behavior. If you have your wits about you, you can avoid it or minimize it. I've had many patients throw a punch at me, or worse. And that always seemed to happen before Security got to my patient's room, and when I was alone with the patient (they're not stupid; they're not going to try something when 2-3 nurses are in the room, only when they're alone with you). But not a single punch ever landed, because I knew I was dealing with an unstable person, and I could see it coming.
You may have missed the clues with your friend who is no longer your friend since he assaulted you. Your ER visit was not the time to try to tell you that, no matter how true it is. Later, when you've mostly recovered, you need to think back on the history of the person who assaulted you, what you know about him, what you don't know about him, what you ever heard about him and his past from others, how he was behaving and how you were feeling in the hours and moments leading up to the assault.
Rarely do violent people give off absolutely no clue that they're going to do something violent. And despite what you see on the news and crime shows, most violence is done by people the victim knows -- sometimes very well. You said you've been on your own since you were 17. If that's the case, then you surely have developed instincts and gut feelings. You need to learn to listen to them, because you will need them when you're nursing, especially if you go into something like ER nursing.
If you have ever felt in your gut something was not right about a situation... if you have ever felt in your gut that someone's behavior was "off" but you couldn't put your finger on how or why... if you've ever felt in your gut like you should get away from someone but it seems like an irrational thought at the time or you fear you're being politically incorrect... I beg you, listen to those gut feelings and get away from that person, or at least do not turn your back on them.
As my old psych nursing instructor said, Never let the patient get behind you, and always know where they are in the room. I would say that also applies to some patients' family members. And sometimes it applies to people you know and you think are your friends.
I'm not sure if you've read or heard about it or not, but a lot of female Peace Corps volunteers have been sexually assaulted over the last several years. You said you are thinking of going to India to volunteer with HIV patients. That's very admirable. The unfortunate thing is that, the places that most need the help are often environments where violence is more frequent and more likely. So such volunteers are already at increased risk when they go there.
Please research where you are going and understand the value they place on a woman's life (or don't) before you go. And don't let anyone get behind you, and always know where they are relative to you in any space. If you've been on your own since 17, I'm not sure how you can afford to volunteer and work for no pay in India after graduating from nursing school, unless you have a trust fund of some kind. If that's the case, absolutely do not talk about having money and don't bring a lot of expensive clothes, items or money with you. They will likely disappear.
I'm not trying to make it sound like all of India is like that -- I know that it isn't, anymore than all of New York City is like that. But a slum is a slum is a slum, whether it's in Chicago, Detroit, New York, Rio or Mumbai. You need to be aware of your surroundings and able to see things and people coming at you before they do, if you plan to go to some of the poorest places on earth. Poverty and everything that goes with it makes people desperate. And desperate people do desperate things, in ways non-desperate people who've never lived in poverty don't understand.
I hope you fully recover, and, again, nothing you did warranted the behavior of those nurses. However, you can't look at it like it was about you. Likely their behavior had nothing to do with you. That doesn't make it right, of course, but, though I know it's extremely difficult, don't take it personally. Those nurses probably behaved that way with a lot of other patients that day, not just you.
And, as someone else pointed out, just because there's only 1 person in the waiting room, doesn't mean there's no hell breaking loose in the back. You've learned some valuable things: people you would never think could be violent can be violent, and that's an ER and hospital where you probably don't want to return to for emergency care, and you definitely don't want to work at. I guarantee you if it's like that in the ER, it won't be any better up on the floors.
Thanks for the advice. I am going with volunteer solutions in during spring break, planning on maybe 2 weeks. I have heard good things about their program, and I have talked to a few differen't people who have also volunteered at the same clinic in Dehli. Even with what I experienced, I am still looking forward to the trip. I'm lucky enough to have a husband who supports me while I am in school. No kids yet! But someday...
Yes, I was in the ER. It was Saturday Morning when this happened. I would say I understood if they were busy, but when I was there was only one person waiting in the waiting area. I went straight back to be treated, no wait. It didn't seem that hetic in there, but I understand when you work in an ER you are probably very stressed out. I was schocked at the way I was treated though.
I really love medicene. I am in my second year of Nursing school, I will graduate spring 2013. So far, I have a good GPA and I love my classes. I still want to stay in this field. I just felt like these nurses hated their jobs, and if I am right, then maybe I should look into something else in the medical area. It breaks my heart to feel this way.
I am 25, I've been on my own since I was 17. I have worked many jobs. I know I want to work in medicene, I know I want to help people. I guess it is silly for me to say I want to switch majors, because honestly I don't think I will. I really love nursing school. I guess I was hoping someone would tell me that this is a rare occurance and most nurses are kind to their patients.
I worked in a dental office as an assistant before going back to school, and one of the patients was a recovering addict who had to have most of his front teeth pulled. When he came in he was a wreck, he was 30 but he looked much older due to bone loss. After the extractions we fixed him up with a bone grafts and a bridge, and he looked like a new man. When we handed him the mirror he began to cry, thanking us. It was amazing what those teeth did for his self esteem. It was then I knew I wanted to be a nurse. Dental was fun, but I wanted to be able to work with more than just that.
You are right, the shouldn't have let me go to the bathroom alone. There are many things they shouldn't have done. I just hope that the job won't make me bitter, like them
If you love nursing school that is great, stick it out.
But remember: you won't be practicing medicine, you will be practicing nursing care - there is a big difference, you keep saying u like medicine. You won't be graduating as a doctor, nursing is completely different from medical care.
Sorry you feel this way. Nursing is very rewarding but also very stressful. There are many things you can do as a nurse not only hospital nursing. I am sorry you were treated that way. The nursing staff may have expirienced mantthings before you arrived or even while you were there without you knowing...but they could have tried to keep it behind the scenes. I think many new nurses and nursing students have this illusion that they are better than expirienced nurses and that us ol vetrans are soooo bad. I think all of us have wanted to save the world through nursing and had this feeling that we would be so much better than that....or never behave in such an awful way. I also believe that until you have put in some time juggling 4-maybe 8 patients with individual needs and expectations then add families with thier own agendas. A dozen docs at least and then everyother department who believes they are the most important for the day...well of you have never done it then you just dont get it. I am sorry you had a bad expirience that sucks. The nurses weren't great..maybe not even very good, but I still believe you were looking at the situation as a nursing student as well as a patient and you are over analyzing it. It should have nothing to do with your career choice....if you love nursing than you just do and you will finish school and begin your career and use this to make yourself a better nurse..heh heh but somehow I truely believe you will look back and think how naive you were.
Sometimes I sing, but that's more like punishment for everyone...
Lindsey-Student
11 Posts
Well thanks for your comments :). I actually feel a lot better now. I talked to a friend of mine who went through a very negative experience at the same hospital ER and then had a really great experience at another hospital. She said that that she was told the hospital is understaffed, and it makes sense that the nurses would be stressed out. I don't know if I will write a complaint, I would rather talk to the nurse herself, write her a letter of some sort.
I didn't want to take the meds without knowing what they were, but I was afraid if I didn't, the way she was shouting at me, that they would tie me to the bed or something! She honestly intimidated me. I wasn't out of control, but I was panicked. I still don't know what she gave me. When I was dismissed, A woman came in to get my insurance information, and I asked her to please find the nurse and find out what she gave me, and it never happened.
The doctor however, was kind and polite. The patient care tech asked me if I was pressing charges, when I said yes, she said "good", but other than that, I felt like I was treated like a peice of meat by the RN. I wasn't intoxicated or belligerent, maybe when they see assualt victims they usually are, I don't know. I wish I had an explination as to why I was treated me like that. I probably never will.