Does anyone else feel this way?

ohcomeon · Mar 6, 2011

I haven't read all the posts, so forgive me because I'm sure my thoughts on this are echoed by other posters. My short answer is no, I don't feel this way at all. I think it is really sad and simple minded that you do. I think people cope with things in different ways...smoking, drinking, over eating, etc. They may or may not know that it is bad, wrong, unhealthy, etc, but they may not know how to stop, or care to stop. Some people may charge up their credit cards to deal with their problems, others may over eat, smoke, do drugs, or drink to deal with the same problems. Of course a lifetime of the latter eventually leads to chronic and life shortening health problems. Is it my place to judge? No, it's not. So even though I still have one more semester to go before I graduate, I try to treat everyone the same at clinicals. My father has been a smoker for years. He knows the health ramifications of that I'm sure. He is also retired from an extremely stressful job as a fire chief. Maybe smoking was his way of dealing with his stress, who knows. But one thing I can say, I would really hope that if someday he ends up hospitalized for some illness that smoking brought on, you are NOT his nurse. All people deserve the same level of respect and care, no matter what.

billyboblewis · Mar 6, 2011

By enforce I mean we are not allowing the open use or storage of illegal drugs and reporting such immediately to the authorities and our supervisors. I seen drugs and firearms and had both removed by security.

MomRN0913 · Mar 6, 2011

Hmmm, sometimes i don't feel so sorry for some people either. However, you seem to be very personally judgemental. Yeah, we need ot eat to live, but really to be so obese to land you in the hospital, you are usually pretty abusive to food. Just because you need it to love doesn't make it any more OK to abuse than does other legal substances whether or not you need it.

Everyone makes their own choices. They suffer the consequences of their own choices. I am sure they are living with it. It's your business whether or not you want to feel sorry for them or not. But as a nurse you do need to provide equal care to all your patients.

billyboblewis · Mar 6, 2011

Just for informational purposes to new nurses only. Rehab and group therapy rarely provide complete cures for drug addicts and alcoholics who suffer many serious diseases because of their primary diagnosis.

KenH · Mar 6, 2011

Last December a 38 year old male died of ETOH abuse, two weeks later the father came in and died also from ETOH abuse, they both got great care till the end.

I didn't feel sad or sorry for them and they got great care just like every one else, only sadness i felt was for the family.

happy2learn · Mar 6, 2011

Im blown away by the number of judgmental posts on here that also tell the OP to not be judgmental. Ironic.

I 100% agree with heron. We are all ALLOWED to feel as we do. Its whether or not we act on these feelings that determines our level of professionalism.

I can't stand some of my coworkers. But I do not treat them different than the coworkers I like.Because that would be unprofessional .

There are some families I work with that I dont like because they are rude. But I still make sure they are taken care of as well as the families I really enjoy. Why? Because they still deserve to be helped. Some of our regular rude ones have warmed up to me over time. I also love my job and my hospital and have never had a complaint against me and I would like to keep it that way. lol

So to the ones who think it is impossible to set your feelings aside, you really want me to believe that you have NEVER met someone you don't like, or do you

just always make your feelings known?

Now as far as not feeling sorry for certain patients..... Well I can understand that. Look at it this way, there is a reason people make choices to do certain unhealthy things . I feel sorry that they choose to waste their life away. I am sad that they think their life is so invaluable that they just want to drink or eat. I wonder what happened in their lives that caused them to make that choice. I am sad for their loved ones. To watch someone you love drink, smoke, or eat themselves to death must be difficult and heartbreaking.

Everything is not always what it seems at the surface level.

Btw my mom smoked for many years. She quit about 10 years ago. Should she develop something from that, I could care less how her nurse feels. I care about how she treats and cares for my mom. There is a difference. It won't matter how you feel if you are a crappy nurse.

carolmaccas66, BSN, RN · Mar 7, 2011

Welcome to human nature!!

There are many, many threads about this topic, you can do an internal google search for them.

When and if ever you do mental health, you will deal with many and varied patients who present again and again with the same illnesses, whether it is from drug taking, alcoholism, STDs or anorexia, just to name a few. If we try to remain non-judgemental, we can help these people focus on other ways to reduce and manage their addictions and talk and work through their behavioural problems. Some people have also had terrible lives, such as being abused from a young age and turn to drugs and alcohol for example to try and manage their feelings.

Nursing is a lot about cleaning up people's messes, and some people become institutionalised to hospitals and psych clinics, because they feel safe and many will never 'be normal' or cease their destructive behaviour, due to differeing causes.

I felt like this when I first started nursing, then I got a bit more experience and education. I used to think 'Why do we bother treating these people?' and with some, non-compliant patients still think that. But if we turned them all away, where would they go? They would die in their beds or in the street. And society would not tolerate that would they?

It's a very hard thing to see for instance a young father who goes on a drinking binge, drive hundreds of kilometres drunk out of his skull, become a vent patient and leave behind a wife and 3 young kids. That one case made me really angry - this guy was just irresponsible and his wife thought he would just 'come out of his coma' and become normal. She was so far in denial re her hubby's behaviour it was unbelievable. She did not blame him for any of it (mind you he killed two other people as well). I felt like saying: 'Sorry honey he won't be coming back to you in this world or any other. He is now a vegatable'.

But you can only do your best every day, and keep trying to educate people. it may all get better with experience, but do remember to go home and try to de-stress or you will go crazy, ie: write a journal, do some exercise, pilates, yoga, whatever. Do not take it all on board or you go crazy thinking about it.

autumnmom · Mar 7, 2011

People who have never smoked also get lung cancer.

carolmaccas66, BSN, RN · Mar 7, 2011

Sorry I also meant to say some people with addictive behaviours - in any shape or form - will NEVER change or consider modifying their behaviour unless they really want to, even if you have the best nurses, best doctors, drugs, clinics, best counsellors - it does not matter. They will not change anything until they are ready too. Perhaps one way to look at it, as in psych, is to see yourself as a facilitator in this process - you are not responsible for their behaviour - THEY are responsible in the end, and we have to keep enabling them to help themselves.

But in the end, you have to realise some people will not change no matter what therapy is instituted, because they are immature and not ready to take responsibility for their actions. They may never take responsibility for anything again in their lives.

Southern Magnolia · Mar 7, 2011

Try to remember that you have no idea what has gone on in a persons life before you met them. There are all sorts of reasons people end up addicts, drunks, obese, depressed . . . Believe it or not there are horrors in life that make addiction preferable. Of course this isn't the case for everyone but you just can't credit it all to bad choices. I'd venture there is almost always a root cause that goes so much deeper than thrill seeking or lack of control.

ckh23, BSN, RN · Mar 7, 2011

wow onaclearday
Your outlook on patients as cash cows for the hospital is really fantastic. I'm going into nursing to help people, not make money for hospitals.

So when your done school you are going to work for free? Just wanting to help people isn't going to pay the bills. If hospitals don't make any money how are you going to be paid? Let's cut the crap about money. Nursing is a career and people have careers to make a living.

Meraki · Mar 7, 2011

I want to tell you the story of Sarah – her story is just one of hundreds like her I have worked with.

Sarah was born to a 14 year old mother, the result of a rape. Sarah’s mom already had a drug problem, one made worse by the rape and birth of the baby. They lived with Sarah grandma for the first four years in a home filled with conflict, addiction and emotional suffering. At 18 Sarah moved out taking Sarah with her. The next years for Sarah were filled with sexual and physical abuse, neglect, and exposure to violence. Sarah was given her first sip of alcohol at age 7, she smoked her first cigarette at age 9 and her first joint at age 10, all courtesy of a mother lost in mental illness, addiction and domestic violence. At 8 or 9 Sarah moved back to her grandmothers who loved her dearly but who was in poor health and had little energy to deal with Sarah. So Sarah continued to visit her mother to give grandma a break and the abuse continued. Sarah was 13 when one night her grandmother collapsed in front of her, Sarah unsuccessfully tried to revive her and sat on the floor alone as the only person who had every loved her died in front of her. With no one to take her in, Sarah was placed in a group home, where drug use was rampant. Within six months she was using crack, at 14 she was working the streets under the control of a pimp to fund her drug use. The next four years are a blur for Sarah – by the time she turned 18 she had moved 16 times, still hadn’t completed grade 9, and had become a hardened experienced prostitute. Drugs were how she coped, they numbed her, they allowed her escape, they allowed her to survive. At 18 Sarah was discharged from the ‘system’ and moved away, determined to start fresh. Years of therapy and rehab followed as Sarah has fought year after year to deal with her past and to make better choices. She has lived in the same apartment for 3 years, hasn’t prostituted since she left at 18, recently got her GED. Yet months of drug free living could be undone though by a reminder, a memory too difficult to deal with. No therapeutic strategy, no medication, no support person could ever remove the pain.

Has Sarah made bad decisions in life? Hundreds, probably thousands of them and she lives with the consequences of these every day. And sometimes the self-loathing over the choices she has made are what make her use again, to get through the days when life feels unliveable - only to continue the cycle.

Sarah’s hospital chart doesn’t tell her life story, she rarely shares it. Instead it contains words like addict, dysfunction, non-compliant, poor self care – all true. Her labs show liver damage, her first interaction with a nurse is usually to ask when she can get a cigarette. She can be defensive and difficult...pushing people away with her words and actions to protect herself from being hurt. Trust comes slowly. She can see easily through thinly veiled disdain or through insincerity in words and actions. People think they are keeping their judgments to themselves but she sees it in their body language, their tone of voice, their indifference.

In that moment when you interact with Sarah as her nurse you have a choice. You can suspend judgment and show her genuine care and respect, sending her the message that her life has value and worth. Or you can join the long list of those who since birth have judged her and found her unworthy, undeserving of love, of respect; just another pathetic, irresponsible person choosing to make bad decisions.