How do you deal with unfairness?

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Specializes in ICU, Triage, Home Health, primary care FNP.

I started working at a trauma center ICU. I see a sweet old lady coming from a hard day's work in a substandard working condition get run over by a public bus. She is not making any progress, i.e., not following commands, develop ARDS, and it's been 3 weeks. Meanwhile, the guy next door is a drug addict who develops a SAH and make it okay. How do you deal with seeing the core life's unfairness? What helps you keep going when you realize this: no matter how hard you live your life the right/good way, you could end up disabled, paralyzed? How about seeing people who do drugs, rapists, child molesters, murderers, thieves, and robbers end up making it. i strive to provide good care for patients no matter if they were drug users or a hard working single mother. but it does "get to me" eventually. i am human after all.

Thanks in advance:cry:

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Specializes in SICU.

Life is unfair, it just is. If it is starting to get to you, can you talked to someone to lessen the stress. Does your hospital have an Employee Assistance Program with counselors? Do you have a religious leader that you can you talk to? Wishing you the best.

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Specializes in Neuro/Trauma SICU.

The fact is that you can not control everything. We just don't know. I think about that when I see people die from sepsis "of an unknown origin". With all of our technology there is still mystery in life.

If you believe in the after life, then take solace in the fact that the rapists, murderers, and criminals can walk on earth today, but will have a eternity of hell one day. Your little old lady found some peace that day.

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Specializes in midwifery, NICU.

The longer you work with people, the more you realise that sometimes life just stinks! Fairness and rewards for living a good life just dont enter the equation! I see so many unfair situations, people longing for a baby, who deliver a preemie with multiple disabilities, versus the down in the gutter woman who spits out babies, with no idea of the father, and gives these babies away as she cant even contemplate looking after herself, never mind a child..(or 5, or 6!). Thats life, thats reality, bloody stinks though, but WE cant change it.

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Specializes in ICU, Triage, Home Health, primary care FNP.
The fact is that you can not control everything. We just don't know. I think about that when I see people die from sepsis "of an unknown origin". With all of our technology there is still mystery in life.

If you believe in the after life, then take solace in the fact that the rapists, murderers, and criminals can walk on earth today, but will have a eternity of hell one day. Your little old lady found some peace that day.

i had an epiphany as i was reading your reply. i've found that i have lost my belief in the after life and faith in some powerful being. it happened about the same time that i started working at this unit because of all the unfairness i've witnessed and continue to witness. i've become more and more skeptical. i feel the need to reconnect with my long loss faith after reading your reply...wow! thank you very much. :nurse:

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Specializes in EMS, ER, GI, PCU/Telemetry.

i have often wondered this same question myself. i have so many times questioned why in the heck i would be coding a precious 2 year old baby and not the child molester in the next stretcher. it made me question god alot. i actually gave up my faith for a while because i just believed that no god would ever let such foolishness go on. but i came to a really difficult realization after my boyfriend was killed in an MVA a few years ago. i wondered why at 21 years old, he had to be hit and killed by a drunk driver...why didnt the drunk driver die instead? i was so angry and my resentment really began to show through with my work... i just had so much trouble grasping all of it. his mom put it to me this way, which really turned my life around and helped me make the decision to become a nurse... that this world is a troublesome place, full of evil and suffering, no matter how hard we try we will never be able to avoid all of it... but those who have passed on are safe with god, are no longer suffering and are enjoying all the things that we cannot have here...

i guess what im trying to say is that, spiritual or not, there is a plan for all of us...and somehow, somewhere, there is something better than what we have here on earth...

i pray strength each time i work and i realize and see things now that i would have been completely cynical about before...i think just putting all those unanswered questions up to god and not taking them on your shoulders is just a relief in itself. life does stink, and it is unfair, but none of us can change it...and i dont really want to try..

good luck to you.

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