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 burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
And what happens in the bedroom between consenting adults is none if your business. Never forget that!
While I couldn't possibly agree more with this statement, unprofessional behavior that makes it obvious an affair is going on at WORK might become my business.
A very experienced co-worker told me a story that happened many years ago to her one night when she was working as a CNA in a nursing home. Apperently the married RN on duty had been having an affair with the medical director and her husband found out about it. The husband showed up at the nursing home with a tire iron intending on cracking skulls of the RN and her lover. Nobody got hurt in the end but some damage was done and the whole faciliety was in an uproar for a while.
I would be very angry if a coworkers indiscretions resulted in my having to stay late becuase their spouse showed up wit violence on his (her) mind.
After reading this post. I don't desire to watch in reality TV today. This was good. LOL However that Dr. is an jack ball for cheating on his wife. IJS...
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.
Thanks for the video. Dang ! last time I did the "Freak" I hurt for days.
Specializes in Psychiatric, Med-Surg, Operating Room.
Yup -- lost respect for the surgeon as well.
Yes, I personally know Mrs. Dick as does Heidi and everyone else we work with. She's a physician on a consulting service; we see her frequently and regularly.
I know nothing about the details of the Dick marriage.
I do know that sitting in the break room -- or at a nurse's station, in a patient room (patient unconscious, thank the stars) or anywhere else with those two is uncomfortable. 21 is young, but not so young as to NOT see how uncomfortable you're making others.
Dr. Dick and his wife will be moving on in July. Heidi presumably -- and we all know how big of an assumption this is where new grads are concerned -- will be staying and working with all of us for the next few years or so. My days of working with either Dr. Dick are numbered; and I don't work as closely with the Dicks. Heidi could be my orientee, (yup, still on orientation) my substation partner, someone whose evaluation I'll have to do or a committee member I'll have to work with quite closely. Her behavior is making her fellow nurses uncomfortable with her.
And while Dr. Dick is a sleaze, he'll be gone and forgotten while I'm still working with Heidi.
This thread isn't going to influence the behavior of Dr. Dicks anywhere, but if Heidis everywhere see it and think about it, perhaps it may influence their behavior. (This is a nursing site, after all). And that's where I was aiming.
I understand your reasoning and I agree. Heidi is behaving foolishy and her unprofessional behavior in the workplace can potentially have long-term consequences on her young career. However, I maintain that as a co-worker unless patients/families are being ignored/harmed while someone plays hanky panky in the supply closet, then there is not much to be done. Unless of course, you escalate the situation to management, but I don't know your work environment and if that is an avenue you would be interested in pursuing. Alternatively, are you close or do you feel comfortable just ever so casually mentioning to Heidi that she may want to tone down her antics less someone should see her and get the wrong impression. This can be done and without coming across as the Lt. of the moral police division.
Also, I know the moral of your story is to forewarn nurses of engaging in such activities, but how about giving Dirty Dick a little advice. All it takes is for one person to claim that he's sexually harassing/being inappropriate before it leaves a dent in his reputation (and maybe his bank account).
If anything, it's in extremely poor taste to flaunt their relationship at work.
I have never really understood the mindset of someone who would willingly step across the boundaries knowing their actions would have a profound and hurtful effect on another person. Granted, I'm biased. My first husband did this to me back in the late 70s. I lived in the San Francisco Bay area and this was before a name was given to AIDS. Lots of people I knew, professionally and socially, were getting sick. The ex was a newly minted law school grad and decided to take up with a woman at work who was married to a man who later came out. Of course, it was months after the affair started before I found out. By the time our divorce was finalized and I had moved halfway across the country, I found out her ex had tested positive. That meant years of testing for me and when I remarried, using safe sex and postponing having children until my doctors felt they could give me full assurance that I wouldn't come down with the virus.
My story isn't the norm in that most of these hookups don't carry with them the possibility of a dire and potentially fatal disease but the emotional baggage and pain are almost always the same. If Dr. Dick and Heidi don't care about hurting others or the potential consequences, no one can force their moral code on them, but they should at least have respect for their co-workers and patients who may witness their behaviors. Keep it out of the workplace.
I understand your reasoning and I agree. Heidi is behaving foolishy and her unprofessional behavior in the workplace can potentially have long-term consequences on her young career. However, I maintain that as a co-worker unless patients/families are being ignored/harmed while someone plays hanky panky in the supply closet, then there is not much to be done. Unless of course, you escalate the situation to management, but I don't know your work environment and if that is an avenue you would be interested in pursuing. Alternatively, are you close or do you feel comfortable just ever so casually mentioning to Heidi that she may want to tone down her antics less someone should see her and get the wrong impression. This can be done and without coming across as the Lt. of the moral police division.
Also, I know the moral of your story is to forewarn nurses of engaging in such activities, but how about giving Dirty Dick a little advice. All it takes is for one person to claim that he's sexually harassing/being inappropriate before it leaves a dent in his reputation (and maybe his bank account).
Funny you mention sexual harassment. You know, I've worked my entire career in absolute fear of those two words. Yet the folks who actually do things like this you'd probably have to read back the definition for them.
My humble opinion is that sexual harassment is a 4 letter word. Unless your into it of course, then it's business as usual. Particularly for us guys out there.
Guys -- you must always follow the Golden Rule of Workplace Relationships: "Thou shalt not put thy rod in thy staff".
Thanks for making me blow coffee out my nose! lol
In other places I have worked, that kind of PDA in a lunchroom, even if it's between a legally married or dating couple, would receive some kind of ridicule, like the rest of us saying "Hey, get a ROOM!" Or some similar comment that makes *them* feel uncomfortable.
A frustration someone posted on a message board is gossip to you? I guess we won't be seeing you here much, then!
Oh, I didn't read this as implying that OP was gossiping. I thought it was another way of saying, "Let him who is without sin..." since I bet everyone of us has committed gossip, if not infidelity. I haven't posted a response yet since I noticed that my first response was to blurt out the story of my experience with a power-imbalanced affair between coworkers. Fortunately, I realized I was motivated by still lingering anger and the resulting post would have been only a form of gossip.
The point at this point being, I guess, that these affairs are often NOT self-contained; they can have very negative consequences on other workers, some of which have been noted by other posters.
Riveting topic, Ruby! Neurons are firing all over the AN brain!
last time I did the "Freak" I hurt for days.
PMFB-RN, RN
5,351 Posts
While I couldn't possibly agree more with this statement, unprofessional behavior that makes it obvious an affair is going on at WORK might become my business.
A very experienced co-worker told me a story that happened many years ago to her one night when she was working as a CNA in a nursing home. Apperently the married RN on duty had been having an affair with the medical director and her husband found out about it. The husband showed up at the nursing home with a tire iron intending on cracking skulls of the RN and her lover. Nobody got hurt in the end but some damage was done and the whole faciliety was in an uproar for a while.
I would be very angry if a coworkers indiscretions resulted in my having to stay late becuase their spouse showed up wit violence on his (her) mind.