Actually, I lost all respect for two colleagues today. One is a brand new grad, about 21 or 22 and gorgeous in one of those fresh, "girl next door" ways. She gets her scrubs tailored so they fit her just so, her hair is long, shiny and falls in loose lustrous waves. She could be a model, so we'll call her Heidi. The other is a married neurosurgery fellow, whose wife is pregnant with his first child. We'll call him Dr. Dick, or just Dick.
Heidi didn't do anything to seriously endanger a patient: she didn't slam in Lasix, for example, or trickle in Adenosine. She didn't miss a run of VT (although, to be fair, the Clin Tech noticed it first and pointed it out to Heidi). She didn't ignore post-op pain or bleeding, and she wasn't the one sitting at the computer at the nurse's station, headphones on and watching a hockey game while ignoring monitor alarms and call bells. Nevertheless, I've completely lost respect for her.
It was a slow night for a Friday night -- half of our surgeons were out of town for a conference and of the remaining four, one just lost his mother and isn't back from the funeral in Asia. There's a new sushi restaurant near the hospital, and they deliver if you can put together a lucrative-enough order. The folks I work with are crazy about sushi and even the Respiratory Therapists and the X-ray techs were ordering $20 worth of sushi.
We were all sitting in the back -- well, not ALL of us. Half of us were sitting in the back, having drawn the long straw and were enjoying our sushi while the other half watched all of the patients. Heidi was sitting next to Dick, something that really didn't register with me at the time, and Dick was regaling us all with a tale about how his wife's incredible morning sickness caused her to toss her cookies in the waste basket of a patient's hospital room while the patient described in great detail the "unusual" nature of his poop. (Only nurses -- and surgeons, RTs and X-ray techs can sit around enjoying a good meal while describing poop and someone's vomiting episodes.)
And then I went back to relieve Steve, my substation partner so he could eat his sushi. While Steve was gone, his patient's attending surgeon stopped by and asked a question I couldn't answer, so I popped into the break room to ask him about it. Both Heidi and Dick were still there, only this time they were sharing a single chair. The sexual tension was palpable, and Steve looked thrilled to be interrupted. He shot out of the room as though he'd been fired from a cannon.
Heidi, it seems, has been sleeping with Dick since her arrival on our unit in July. She knows all about the pregnant wife . . .
Heidi may be a good clinician one day, she may be a compassionate and caring nurse. She may be a hard worker. But I will never again respect a woman who could sleep with a married man, a man whose wife is pregnant with their child and who is a sometimes-colleague on a consulting service. And the fact that they made no attempt to be discreet makes them even more contemptible. I've lived through the drama on a unit when an affair goes bad, witnessed a famously and flagrantly unfaithful surgeon's wife storm into the ICU demanding "which one of you ugly ******* is ******* my husband?" and making a good attempt to castrate the man in question. I've seen the aftermath of the DON being found going at it with the Medical Director of Emergency Medicine and I've lived through more nurses breaking up with doctors on our service than I can even remember. I've been the cheated-upon, and it was more painful than even I can describe. Why would you put someone else through that deliberately?
Keep it out of work, people. And if you cannot do that, at least be discreet.
Specializes in ED, Cardiac-step down, tele, med surg.
Cheating is hurtful and I tend to feel disappointed when people do things that seem to be out of character for them. I like to think that if someone is a good at their job, that their behavior outside of work matches, but sometimes it does not. There might be mitigating circumstances and maybe they haven't yet slept together, maybe they have just been flirting heavily. Who knows. I guess if you are friends with any of them outside of work, you could ask. I try not to make harsh judgments of people, but invariably do. It's human nature. I guess, I might be a little disappointed if I were in your place, but wouldn't lose total respect, knowing that no one is perfect and not everyone has the same moral compass as I do.
Specializes in Float Pool-Med-Surg, Telemetry, IMCU.
I don't think ones sexual indiscretions are an indicator of how they'll perform their duties at work. It's a bit of a stretch to jump from adultery to lying about med errors. Humans are complex and the person with the most screwed up personal life can still be an amazing nurse/doctor/president/whatever.
And who knows? Dr. and Dr. Dick may be polyamorous. They may have big freaky threesomes and lead double lives as swingers.
Would probably find myself wishing that a tad more nursing and a tad more doctoring were going on in that unit, by both of the transgressors. Otherwise, situations like this always liven up the lunchroom chatter if nothing else.
I was filled in on the scandalous affair between the DON and the night shift supervisor. Both married, his wife pregnant, her husband a doctor back in the "home" country, her with four children, him with two, besides the one on the way. Just scandalous. But what really, really made me lose respect for the DON? Finding out that she was stealing controlled meds from the facility. My thoughts on her. She should have been prosecuted and lost her license. That interested me, not that she showed no loyalty to her doctor husband across the pond.
This has nothing to do with them as professionals. As long as they are competent at work despite personal issues they have with one another...whats the deal?
Not really sure why you are so concerned by another person's personal life.
...or your episode of "Punked". Perhaps Nurse Heidi is onto the fact that the OP doesn't like her very much, for reasons unclear. Perhaps she is also in on the fact that her roommate is making up stories about their living situation, and what she does and doesn't do in her off time.
Perhaps the MD was asking her about her time at the facility, Nurse Heidi decides to discuss this with him, and he in fact says "Nooooo there's no gossip on this floor" and Nurse Heidi says "watch this, scoot over, and I betcha any amount of money that it will be all over the unit by sundown that we are having an affair". And so it goes.....
Story seem far fetched? About as far fetched as KNOWING that someone is having an affair with anyone at work over a seat sharing and roommate snarkiness situation. And caring so much about it that it becomes the basis to decide that this nurse is not a good one over it.
This doctor has probably done this many times before. Once a wonanizer, always a womanizer. His wife may well be aware of what he does. Maybe she turns a blind eye to it.
I have come to the conclusion that I work in a very boring environment. Granted, I live and work in a very small town, so I guess my coworkers and I don't have access to "the finer things in life". None of us eat Sushi at work or anywhere else. I don't even know of any restaurants that serve that around here.
None of us have tailored scrubs. We all buy off the rack at the local Wal-Mart. Cheap scrubs, but not much variety to choose from. Consequently, I almost always find one or two of my coworkers wearing the same uniform that I am wearing.
If there are any affairs going on, I guess they are being discreet, because I never hear about it. The most lively conversation I hear at work are: car problems that someone is having, a home remodeling project that is going horribly wrong, or complaints about the weather.
I don't know if I should feel jealous that I don't work in a more exciting place, or that I am thankful that I work in a fairly "drama-free" atmosphere.
amzyRN
1,142 Posts
Cheating is hurtful and I tend to feel disappointed when people do things that seem to be out of character for them. I like to think that if someone is a good at their job, that their behavior outside of work matches, but sometimes it does not. There might be mitigating circumstances and maybe they haven't yet slept together, maybe they have just been flirting heavily. Who knows. I guess if you are friends with any of them outside of work, you could ask. I try not to make harsh judgments of people, but invariably do. It's human nature. I guess, I might be a little disappointed if I were in your place, but wouldn't lose total respect, knowing that no one is perfect and not everyone has the same moral compass as I do.