Positive Attitude

Large gin and tonic does it for me. Hic.

I can see nothing gets past you.

Do you make a clunking sound when yoj sit down?

Great, and if we ever stop being affected by some of the things we deal with, it's time for a career change! Mmmm, is your husband cute?

I haven't read the whole thread: too much of it!! Most of my 26 years in nursing have involved palliative care in one form or another, and currently I work as a community based Nurse Specialist in Palliative Care. I must have seen thousands of people die, and spent time with their families / friends / partners. Mostly I see my job as just that: a job that pays he bills. Now and again along will come a patient who strikes a particular note with me for some reason and once in a while I have felt personal sadness on the death of a patient. I have twice in my whole career cried at home over the death of a patient. I have never cried in front of a patient or their significant others, but I have let them know that I feel sad about their situation And that is part of being a good nurse. In order to really help people you need a certain degree of detachment. People need support, information, help and need to be able to feel that they can cry on the shoulder of the nurse. They don't need an emotional wreck that they have to support (and I have witnessed that). i have also never hugged a patient or significant other, but I have allowed them to hug me if they wish to do so. I don't feel I'm cold or a cyborg: I'm appropriate. If you read all of the relatively few posts I've made you'll see that I have another hat as a patient. Prior to combination ARV I faced the likelihood of death. If any of my health workers had cried on me I'd have run a mile. Having said all of that if other nurses shed a quick tear privately when their patients die, and that is helpful for them, then good!!

It does sound like it could be a paradoxical reaction to a sedating agent (sorry, not familiar with your drug names), so the more you give the worst the patient becomes!! Could it be a psychotic episode? Have you asked for a psych opinion? The only solution is likely to be TOTAL sedation. Here we would probably use midazolam and levomepromazine.

A million times, especially since I've been out of uniform! Sometimes it's helpful if a patient is disoriented: they sometimes take more notice of a "doctor" than a nurse!!

Me neither. And I am BUTCH!!

Erm, handling body fluids is a potential risk to the health worker rather than the patient, surely? There are a small number of specific procedures that health workers with certain infections (including HIV) should probably not carry out. Suturing, for example. But to put a blanket ban on all nurses with HIV from being involved in direct patient care sounds like out and out descrimination if you ask me. I have been a nurse for 26 years and HIV positive for 25 of them and I can assure you that absolutely NO patient has ever been put at risk by me.