Profanity in the workplace

I dunno. I think about the pain scale. Between one and ten. I just assume there's no way its a 10 because it can always get worse..

Too much? Yelling that you hope the (very) pregnant employee has a miscarriage?

In depth descriptions of what one they would like to use their anatomy to perform on your anatomy?

The F-bombs accompanied by descriptions of who they will injure/kill when the cuffs come off..

CalicoKitty said:

I dunno. I think about the pain scale. Between one and ten. I just assume there's no way its a 10 because it can always get worse..

Too much? Yelling that you hope the (very) pregnant employee has a miscarriage?

In depth descriptions of what one they would like to use their anatomy to perform on your anatomy?

The F-bombs accompanied by descriptions of who they will injure/kill when the cuffs come off..

This is all very amusing to me, because I assumed she meant staff. My current co-workers are very "clean-spoken". It was a huge adjustment for me.

From patients or staff?

Sour Lemon me too! My unit tends to be a bit crass...but that's trauma for you. We are not the most clean spoken bunch in the building for sure!

Who is using them, staff, patients or doctors?

From patients, most of it is too much, tbh. If they're cursing, there's a good chance they're directing it at staff and they're not playing around. The are ways to share your frustrations appropriately when you want hospital staff to intervene; save the profanity for when you vent to your family and friends later.

From staff, as long as we're not using it in front of the patients and not directing it at each other, I don't see the problem. I guess it depends on the culture of the unit, but if it was a problem where I worked, I probably wouldn't be employed there anymore, lol.

My level of F bombs at work dropped exponentially when my problem employee resigned....amazing correlation

Sour Lemon said:

This is all very amusing to me, because I assumed she meant staff. My current co-workers are very "clean-spoken". It was a huge adjustment for me.

Yeah, the idea that the OP might be referring to patients never crossed my mind.

OP: Do your co-workers at least use the profanity creatively...?

Not much profanity heard in my department. I prefer it that way.

My opinion is that profanity is only to be used when no other word will suffice. It keeps the words powerful.

If used sparingly and appropriately, I have no problem.

When my patient is about to code, my other patient is on multiple vasoactives that need titrating, and the code beeper goes off for the floors I'm supposed to be covering...It's F-bomb city. But it's just an isolated string of F-bombs, or 'eff this situation'. I'm not cursing my colleagues, the patients, the families....I'm cursing the situation, and if the situation weren't effed up, I'd be totally clean-mouthed. But if you give me piss poor staffing and a dangerous patient assignment, and I need to say a few words you don't like for catharsis...you're just going to have to deal.