ER nurses

[MoserK]

I recently watched the movie Patriots Day, it is based on the Boston Marathon bombing. In the end one of the bombers gets taken to the hospital to be treated for his injuries. My question is not, do you treat him? It is, how do you set your feelings aside when you have a patient like this? Obviously it may not be to this magnitude (it could be), or maybe a drunk driver that killed the mothers of three in the next room. I am not trying to be controversial, I am just asking how you work through the hard feelings?

[Purple_roses]

I cared for a patient who had committed murder once. It may sound weird, but I try to picture what these people were like as little kids...everyone was an innocent little kid once.

[Davey Do]

By being an objective nurse and putting principles before personalities.

I'm not there to judge the patient, I'm merely there to provide a service, sometimes gritting my teeth and biting my tongue.

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

I'm not a saint, I have strong feelings about a lot of things. I've had to take care of someone brought in for shooting an officer, often beating a child, a man how had beat his wife so bad we couldn't make out any facial structure. A person that had to get treated to go straight to jail after beating and raping a 4 year old. It goes on and on. THANKFULLY working in the ER my time spent with them is very limited. I shut the emotions off and do the tasks I have at hand. These patients aren't kept in the ER long. Either they are brought in for stitches and clearance. (or to remove multiple prongs embedded deep after being tazed a dozen times after flying through the gate at the air force base, they were lucky they weren't shot) If they are being hospitalized they are taken up as quickly as possible because they have to have officers with them and since this is right after the crime it is usually a lot of officers, not the standard 1-2 prison guards. Anyway, I shut my feelings off. I do my job and the tasks at hand and do what I am supposed to do.

[loveu123]

I have taken care of ED patients who shot or assaulted other people. It can be emotional and hard to not judge but we always got to remember our job is to take care of them without judgement.

[cleback]

I remember in my clinical on a forensics floor, some of the staff would look up the charges of the patients, and some of the staff refused to do that for the reasons you presented. I have to agree... sometimes the less you know, the better.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

Fortunately, my nursing care is not dependent on my feelings. I have cared for murderers and a child molester... their physiologic needs are the same as anyone else's. I am absolutely inwardly judgmental of child molesters...sorry, not sorry. But if I choose to provide subpar nursing care? That would drag MY professionalism and ethics down to a level that isn't acceptable to me. I might spend my shift feeling an extreme need for a shower, but at the end of the day if I am true to my standards and to my profession, I will sleep well. After my shower.