Everybody Wants To Be The Hero

[YUKONrn]

No such thing with covid.  And those of us who worked early in the pandemic refuse to come back.  Now that you've seen it firsthand, if you quit would you go back.  The sickest covid patients will not live, no matter how much effort you put in.  And people who are in the hospitals for non-covid issues, are neglected.  All to try and help somebody who refused to take the vaccine and help themselves.  They are clogging up the hospitals.  If you don't want the experimental vaccine, when you contract covid don't run to the hospital for the experimental treatment.  I say treatment because there is no cure, but the doctors want to be able to document that they did try everything because the family is already threatening to sue and still believes it's a hoax.

New grads, they had to hire you.  This is hospitals required previous experience last year.  You graduated in may, this is your first hospital job, it's only august, and you are quitting and want to leave the profession.  Did you think we were exaggerating?    Nurses are catching covid and getting very sick despite being fully vaccinated.  The only thing I can say is, be careful what you wish for.  Nobody views you as a hero!  Is anybody treating you like a hero?  I already know the answer to that.  You aren't a hero, you are a punching bag.

I'm not going to go on and on because it looks like you found out the hard way but I do want to share a story about how hospitals that are overwhelmed with covid patients are affecting the other patients who normally would have done very well.  Last month I had a 62 year old patient who was bed bound.  She had a right BKA, stage 4 decubitii on both hips, stage 4 decubitii on the sacrum, stage 4 decubitii on the left heel.  She also had an ileostomy that drained liquid stool very fast.  She was at the SNF for physical therapy.  I didn't know her story, I figured a lot of her issues were chronic, but once we got talking and she told me her story, I couldn't bear to listen.  She walked into the hospital in december for a simple hernia repair, her only past medical history is hypertension.  The surgery went well, but her BP was high postoperatively so the doctor admitted her to med/surg overnight for observation.  She said she remembers laying in that room for days, turned on her right side with a pillow behind her back.  They wheeled her into a room, never gave her a call light, and that was all she remembered for 6 months.  She said when she woke up she was missing her right leg.  She had an ileostomy.  She had stage 4 bed sores on both hips, her sacrum and her left heel, she had 5 skin flap surgeries to repair the pressure ulcer on her sacrum.  I said "and you don't remember any of it?"  She said no.  I had to go and look at her chart.  It was true.  Hypertension was her only ailment, she walked into the hospital for a hernia surgery.  The doctor's notes were vague and didn't make sense.  The stage 4 decubiti were due to malnutrition.  They resected all of her intestines because they saw polyps and were concerned about cancer.  The right leg was amputed due to collapse of the right iliac artery and loss of circulation to the right leg resulting in necrosis, a postoperative complication of the hernia repair.  I don't believe any of it.  It sounds to me like they rolled her into a room and got so busy with covid patients, they forgot she was in there.  When they did find her she was beyond septic, she went to ICU and then surgery for an exploratory lap where they removed all of her bowel and placed an ileostomy.  She said they called her family and told them to come in because she probably won't live.  I'm sure they told the ICU nurses that she was going to die too, and because they figured she was going to die, they never checked on her because they were busy with covid patients.  She did live.  But she verbalized that she wished she didn't.  Think about this every time a patient refuses a vaccine, catches covid, and runs to the hospital.  You aren't helping anybody.

[YUKONrn]

Yes her family is suing, but no amount of money is going to give her her quality of life back.  She will never make it home and she knows it.

[Emergent, RN]

5 minutes ago, YUKONrn said:

 

...I'm not going to go on and on...

LOL, you reneged on that promise. ?

[summertx]

It makes no sense that doctors would do this without consent. This lady must have given her family POA? 

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

I don't think everyone wants to be a hero. Many of us were in nursing long before the pandemic and stayed in it because this is the field we chose and this is just what it has temporarily become. I was fortunate that at no point were my hospital resources truly pushed to the limit, we were able to maintain 2-3 patients per nurse throughout the pandemic and while we had many patients die we weren't losing multiple patients per day as some of the larger hospitals experienced. But if there is another wave in my area, which I hope doesn't happen, I will still be there. And even if they're going to die, I will provide care to the best of my ability right up until the last minute. Last year I did do futile rounds of CPR on COVID patients knowing that it was not going to make a difference, but I did it. And I turned my patients, I talked with them, I played music in their room, I held the phone up to their ear to loved ones could talk. I didn't do it because I was a hero. I did it because I was a nurse and they were human beings, deserving of my best efforts in providing their care no matter what brought them there.

I'm not going to get into a vaccine debate, but I find it a little odd that we are drawing a line in the sand about who "deserves" our care more and more these days. When I look around my critical care unit, how many people are truly there for something completely beyond their control? I've got COPD patients that still smoke, diabetic patients that aren't compliant with diet recommendations, I've got alcoholics with pancreatitis or cirrhosis, or just detoxing, I've got drug addicts overdosing or developing cellulitis. The other day my patient was an inmate from a local correctional facility that did some really awful stuff, and a coworker's response was, "I couldn't take care of him." The correctional officers in the room told me I shouldn't really bother with the pain medication because he's not a nice guy.  Who "deserves" our care and resources? And who's to make that judgment? Not me. Whatever brought someone into the unit, it's my legal and moral obligation to care for them. I'm not saying it's not frustrating sometimes, but it's the job I have chosen so I'll do it. Besides, if none of those people were there, I would have no job. 

[RNperdiem, RN]

Tragic complications happen even with the best of care. Be careful what you assume happened unless you were there. When the doctors read out the risks and benefits on the consent, it is because some people will have complications and setbacks, even if people believe that bad things only happen to other people.

Covid is just another illness from my nursing point of view. It seems that a lot of nurses are feeling the strain of the past year. I wish you some peace.

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

This covid vaccine judgment has really gotten to me. People who aren't vaccinated are getting very sick. People who are vaccinated are getting very sick. Get the vaccine so you won't get very sick. Now read the sentence before the last one. None of it makes sense! 

I have a patient in my clinic that was advised by their nephrologist AND their cardiologist to NOT take the vaccine because of health status and comorbidities, but should follow every precaution like masks, distancing, lots of hand washing. Should this person not receive care if they become sick because they didn't get vaxxed? I know there are many anti vaxxers out there, but I don't everyone's story, so I'm not going to judge.

[OUxPhys, BSN, RN]

3 hours ago, Hoosier_RN said:

This covid vaccine judgment has really gotten to me. People who aren't vaccinated are getting very sick. People who are vaccinated are getting very sick. Get the vaccine so you won't get very sick. Now read the sentence before the last one. None of it makes sense! 

I have a patient in my clinic that was advised by their nephrologist AND their cardiologist to NOT take the vaccine because of health status and comorbidities, but should follow every precaution like masks, distancing, lots of hand washing. Should this person not receive care if they become sick because they didn't get vaxxed? I know there are many anti vaxxers out there, but I don't everyone's story, so I'm not going to judge.

That's where Im at. If you didn't get the vaccine because your doctor told you not to then I can't blame you. You did what your doctors said. Unfortunately though they will be labeled as ant-vaxx by the majority without knowing their background. 

[summertx]

18 hours ago, YUKONrn said:

And people who are in the hospitals for non-covid issues, are neglected.  All to try and help somebody who refused to take the vaccine and help themselves.  They are clogging up the hospitals.  If you don't want the experimental vaccine, when you contract covid don't run to the hospital for the experimental treatment. 

Think about this every time a patient refuses a vaccine, catches covid, and runs to the hospital.  You aren't helping anybody.

I snipped these comments because I don't believe that patients should be blamed for not getting the vaccine, saying they 'clogged up' hospitals. They did what they felt best, the vaccines were emergency approval, not FDA approved. Maybe they do believe they should have gotten the vaccine, but I don't think it's best to judge someone because they didn't. It's like someone getting lung cancer after they smoked, we don't blame them, we just treat them. 

[NightNerd, MSN, RN]

8 hours ago, summertx said:

It's like someone getting lung cancer after they smoked, we don't blame them, we just treat them. 

Agreed, to an extent. I don't know what education a patient has gotten and what circumstances they're facing when they come in, so my priority is to treat them and their illness - and do so kindly and without judgment. Then, once I've learned the specifics of their situation, I'll provide any needed education and correct any misunderstandings. Just like I would for a patient who smokes, just like I would for a patient who refuses other routine vaccinations, I want to give them all the information I can to help them make their best informed decision. This 100% applies to the COVID vaccine as well, as widespread vaccination does seem to increase our likelihood of minimizing serious illness and death.

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Interesting

[11blade, RN]

Quote

Trying to explain vaccine concepts to some people in this country is like trying to tell a newly discovered Amazonian tribal member that people can fly on planes-they have no frame of reference to believe you.

I am reminded of a terminally ill woman I looked after my first med-surg job. Her family was always in attendance, very supportive. One day her sister in law pulled me aside, thanking me for showing them how to provide small comforts to this woman that was days away from breathing her last. Her comment that 'I never in my life knew that people could be THIS sick' stuck with me-she had never conceived of it because she had never had exposure to sick people. This is part of the problem today, too, complicated by alternative facts/information.