Doctor or Dockworker?

[Emergent, RN]

Our ER director acts more like a rough and ready longshoreman than a highly educated professional. It dawned on me today that, I don't like my docs to act so blue collar. He drops F bombs right and left and acts like a truck driver or a roofer(not to disparage these indispensable tradesmen)

I don't know his family background at all as far as socio-economic class, but my favorite ER provider is the son of migrant farm-workers, grew up working in the fields, and is the classiest guy in the world.

I'd happen to think that educated professionals should act classy, at least in the workplace. Thanks for reading my little rant.

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

I tend to be a very--how should I say it--"animated" and colorful person at work. The fast pace of my work has a tendency to energize me, and it comes out. No one would ever use the term "classy" to describe me. I mean, I'm not dropping F-bombs at every turn, but I make every facial expression known to man in a single shift, and I come up with a few of my own creations.

Everyone has a different personality, and life and work would be really dull if everyone had the same very composed and restrained personality. I know I certainly wouldn't fit in to that type of environment.

*shrug*

[chiandre]

I'd happen to think that educated professionals should act classy, at least in the workplace.

I agree. What is the use of spending countless of hours, years and money studying and refining ourselves?

As professionals, we need to restrain ourselves when we are dealing with our internal and external customers. We need to show what differentiates us from non-professionals. This includes our speech, mannerisms and even our dress codes.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

I'd happen to think that educated professionals should act classy, at least in the workplace.

To be fair, I also think educated professionals should be able to adjust their approach when interacting with patients and families who might lack education, sophistry and awareness of how to effectively manage the system.

I was reared in a blue collar, working class household by parents with limited vocabularies. Their interactions with educated professionals and bureaucracies were marked with confusion and/or frustration because they could not always understand what was being told to them, but they always nodded as if they understood because they didn't want to be seen as stupid.

Doctors, teachers and other educated professionals speak utilizing jargon, complex adjectives, adverbs and synonyms that their audience might not always comprehend. For instance, a dentist told a mother that her two children had some 'tooth decay' and would need fillings. The mother didn't realize that 'tooth decay' meant 'cavities,' but she never bothered to ask what 'tooth decay' meant.

One of my father's doctors told him that his blood vessels are a little constricted from years of smoking, then gave him a prescription for Lisinopril. To this day my father does not believe he has high blood pressure, yet he didn't fully grasp the word 'constricted.'

The reality is that many people are not going to tell you that they didn't understand a word you said because they've learned all their lives to try to hide their inadequacies regarding not knowing what all these 'fancy words' mean. Therefore, I think it is immensely important for educated professionals to talk at the person's level while taking care to show respect and not infantilize him/her.

[sjalv]

Could you give some examples of what he has said or done (besides the use of the F word) that makes you describe his personality akin to that of a blue-collar worker?

[Wheels28]

In my opinion I don't think personality and education go hand in hand, because education is knowledge that is learned through textbooks, lectures, ect. A personality is formed by life experiences, and the environment around them. Just like many people say "You can't teach compassion" because that is something that is learned by ones environment, not in a text book.

As a PP stated life would be boring if we all acted the same. I had a nurse once who was always cracking jokes during care, she had me laughing so much I cried, she was serious when needed, but when she did not need to be she was a complete goofball.

I had another nurse who was serious, quiet, but was very friendly. All of these nurses had two things in common, they both provided great care and I requested both to take care of me when I went back in the hospital. They both had the same/ similar education yet both had vastly different personalities.

The definition of "classy" I think varies from person to person, One might define a classy individual as someone who is thoughtful, caring, uses manners ect.

Another might define "Classy" as someone who dresses up all the time, speaks well, has high standards, ect.

Education and class do not go together because "Money Don't Buy You Class."

[SubSippi]

I am one of those who tends to use more...colorful...language when expressing my feelings. I've worked in an area where the staff was more reserved, and I held myself back, but people have pretty foul mouths at my current job.

I definitely understand how cursing can be viewed as unprofessional. But dropping a good ol' f-bomb can be more therapeutic than actual therapy.

I enjoy not feeling the need to be "refined." Of course, we tone it down in front of patients and management. But I'm glad my coworkers and I can be ourselves, even if that "self" can be a little raunchy. I think it helps us enjoy being at work, for the most part, and that definitely translates not just to better patient care, but to an overall more pleasant hospital stay for the patients as well.

[duskyjewel]

I am one of those who tends to use more...colorful...language when expressing my feelings......

I definitely understand how cursing can be viewed as unprofessional. But dropping a good ol' f-bomb can be more therapeutic than actual therapy.

I enjoy not feeling the need to be "refined." Of course, we tone it down in front of patients and management. But I'm glad my coworkers and I can be ourselves, even if that "self" can be a little raunchy.

Me too. Honey, I was raised by a sailor who became a cop, and he was raised by a sailor who left the Navy to go play with artillery in the Army. I was doomed to foul-mouthedness from conception.

I'm not exactly proud of it, but I'm not really ashamed of it either. I know how to be professional in front of patients and bosses, but I won't deny a few curses have fallen from my lips in the presence of regular co-workers.

Knowing boundaries is a very good thing with this particular habit.

[No Stars In My Eyes]

I've told this one before on another thread, but....

My first job out of nsg. school was on a fresh-spinalcord-injury unit in a BIG City Hospital. There were a couple of ex-marines I worked with whose great pleasure was to embarrass the new, young nurses, and they were fairly relentless. My strategy was to be worse than they were.

I got so I could reel off comments, responses, ideas and language that made even them drop their mouths open and just blink, because I'd rendered them speechless. It got so that if they were coming down the hall in the opposite direction, they wouldn't say a word; they just slowly shook their head and smiled at me in passing.

There were certain patients in whose rooms the raunchiness could take place right in front of them. Many were the times we got almost competitive about it, and just howled/cried with laughter; it sounded more like a party going on than anything else. I had gained the respect of those ex-marines, and they always helped me out when I needed it, without my even asking.

Of course, I could also be quiet, serious, and comforting.....and appropriate, when those attributes were called for.

Skip forward a number of years and you find me living in the South, re-learning language skills more 'acceptable'. If those ex-marines could hear me now, with my "gosh","golly", and "for heaven's sake!", they would be ROFLAO.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

I too... happen to have colorful language :sofahider. Probably from all my years at a rough inner city trauma center. It has been mentioned that I have a truck drivers mouth on occasion. Then I moved and was employed at an ED in a wealthy suburb of Boston....it was....different... to say the least.

I know when to modify my language...however I do not have a good poker face.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Research has found that people who swear tend to be more trustworthy, and they have lower stress levels (actual measurements of brain activity and cortisol levels have found that swearing lowers stress).

I think the most important thing is that a professional knows how to read his/her audience and refine his/her natural behavior and personality accordingly. I will drop an F-bomb around my colleagues who I know would not be offended. I don't do it around my boss or other colleagues that I don't know well.

[caliotter3]

I think that an individual who can not, even in a small manner, tone down or modify his/her behavior, to put others more at ease, is exhibiting a lack of sensitivity that would cause me to question other aspects of their judgment.