Quick to pass judgement??

[racing-mom4]

I had a patient die the other night. Sad as always. She had a room full of siblings, her parents and her kids. Hearing a mother and a daughter wail and cry over the body of a loved one is something I will never get used too.

This patient had a long death, intubated, lots of drips and we were doing everything we could to keep her alive at the families insistence. Finally the decision was made to make her a no code.

If I heard it once, I heard it 10x from various staff "well she made bad choices" as if she planned this, as if this patient wanted to watch her family suffer. I heard even from my own dear best friend and fellow nurse "it is not like she had cancer or something, she made her choices"

I simply responded with "ya well I have made bad choices too"

The patient was HIV+

We dont know how this woman(sister-daughter-mother-friend) acquired AIDS, i just assumed drugs, but I dont know. Regardless it really does not matter.

Now I have been known to gripe about the obese pts that cant wipe themselves and I have made comments to fellow nurses like "I didnt make them eat the entire cheesecake" and that is snide and snippy of me I know. So I too am quick to judge. What is it with nurses that do this? Is it some sort of coping mechanism they use to deal with the sadness or frustration in our job ? As it is much easier to say "well she made bad choices" then to put your self in that situation.

I am sure we are all guilty of passing judgment---but as nurses should we be? We see the best and the worst of people--we more than any profession know how short life is and at times how unfair life is.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

No, do you mean that I am judging the judgers by the myspace account comment? If so then you are right, I judge too....

Shamefully moving on..

Maybe I'm guilty of judging judgers of judgers.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

Oi, judgers judging the judgers judging the judgers, Im getting dizzy......

:chuckle:lol2:

[Simplepleasures]

What was that book out several years ago, something about lessons learned in kindergarten, being the lessons we all could use as adults, what were they anybody remember? Be kind to one another , share your cookies....

[Simplepleasures]

ok, found it.

http://www.peace.ca/kindergarten.htm

all i really need to know i learned in kindergarten

(a guide for global leadership)

all i really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be i learned in kindergarten. wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

these are the things i learned:

• share everything.
  
• play fair.
  
• don't hit people.
  
• put things back where you found them.
  
• clean up your own mess.
  
• don't take things that aren't yours.
  
• say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
  
• wash your hands before you eat.
  
• flush.
  
• warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
  
• live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
  
• take a nap every afternoon.
  
• when you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
  
• be aware of wonder. remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
  
• goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the styrofoam cup - they all die. so do we.
  
• and then remember the dick-and-jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - look.

everything you need to know is in there somewhere. the golden rule and love and basic sanitation. ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

[Nurse_Hagatha]

I have developed asthma in my adulthood, and have been dealing with it for a little over a year. A few months ago I had to actually go to the ER because my inhaler was not doing the trick. After having solu-medrol and a neb tx the RT asked me how I was feeling. I replied that I was much better. Well she and the nurse proceeded to joke how, "Yeah, these neb treatments always seem to work better in the ER we must have something in the air that makes them work better blah blah blah blah." I was ticked. Say that when I'm out of earshot if you want, but not in front of me like I'm not there. I told them that this was all new to me, and that I didn't have at home nebulizers. Shut them right up.

It is very scary to not be able to breath, and now I have a complex about going to the ER if it ever happens again. If I was not a nurse, in the future I might wait until it was too late just to avoid being treated like that.

I am also overweight and I hate going to the doctor because I know first hand how harshly the medical community can judge an overweight person. Sometimes it feels like why bother, because whatever my problem is it is going to be brushed off with "well, if you would just diet and exercise and lose weight you would not have this problem." Like if I came in with a broken arm it would be, "Well, if she wasn't so fat maybe she wouldn't have broken her arm. She probably fell on it racing to the last donut in the kitchen." I, and more than half the fat people of America, logically know HOW to lose weight, but I'll be darned if it isn't the hardest thing I've ever set out to do.

Everyone has a pet sin, but some are just easier to see on the outside. No one has their act completely together, but I've met many people who think they do and they make my head hurt.

[Simplepleasures]

I know what you mean about being reluctant to seek medical help, because of the judgemental scoldings of medical personnel to an overweight person.More medical care and follow up is needed to help get an overweight person to get healthy, not chasing them away for fear of being humiliated.

[Jabramac]

I think when people die around us, it is human nature to try to find justification. It's a coping mechanism. When we think about the truth, that death can be very random, that people who do everything right in their lives can have really bad things happen, we get really scared. It's easier, and more comforting to find fault. I remember one case when a 2 year old drowned in the bath tub, the childs older sibling was in the tub as well. Mom left the room to get a towel, and came back to find the child face down. Staff commented how irrisponsible the mother was to leave the child. But the truth was, we were all scared it could have been our child. When MVC victims come in, we want to know if there was ETOH, if there was then there is a sense that it couldn't happen to me. We had a teen die in an MVC and the medics reported he wasn't wearing a seat belt. I think that comforted us. Later on we found out the vehicle he colided with clipped the side of his car off and the seat belt went with it.

[Katie82, RN]

HIV is no longer simply a result of bad choices. Drug-free women who aquire HIV from an infected partner are the fastest-growing group of newly-diagnosed HIV patients. Many are infected by their partner or spouse who do not share the woman's "monogomy", or are drug users. Many know they are infected and do not tell the woman. Could be any of us, best not to judge.

[RNperdiem, RN]

If it weren't for bad choices that people make, the trauma service would shrink by half.

If people quit drinking and driving, always wore their seatbelts, and stayed away from illegal drugs, I would be out of a job.

[Simplepleasures]

If it weren't for bad choices that people make, the trauma service would shrink by half.

If people quit drinking and driving, always wore their seatbelts, and stayed away from illegal drugs, I would be out of a job.

Ill drink to that!:cheers:

[racing-mom4, BSN, RN]

If it weren't for bad choices that people make, the trauma service would shrink by half.

If people quit drinking and driving, always wore their seatbelts, and stayed away from illegal drugs, I would be out of a job.

Just a few weeks ago, I was in an IOPA class and they said due to how safe cars are now, and bike helmets and how long we are actually able to keep people alive only 0.04% (dont quote me on that exact number) of all deaths even qualify for organ donation. Organ meaning just that organs:hearts/lungs/kidney. More people can of course donate eye,skin , muscle and bone.

But I thought that was odd that because we are now so safe, organ donatation is suffering.

Very interesting comments so far on this thread, I for one know that I am quick to judge, it is a fault of mine I am conscious of would like to correct. We are though human and judging of others has been around since the start of time. I just think nurses of all people should be the least to do so yet as a defense coping mechanism I think it is innate in us that we sub consciously do it.

[bigjim]

If it weren't for bad choices that people make, the trauma service would shrink by half.

If people quit drinking and driving, always wore their seatbelts, and stayed away from illegal drugs, I would be out of a job.

The thing is, a lot of time the patient's condition IS their fault. Prostitute or IV drug user with HIV? Likely their fault. Stupid kid driving 120 mph and ends up in a coma? Their fault. Guy picks a fight or hangs out in a known dangerous location and ends up getting stomped? Certainly the fault of the person who hit him, but also his fault for not choosing his friends and hobbies more carefully. Obese person with CAD, COPD, CHF, type 2 diabetes, any of a million other things? Likely their fault. And the obesity is their fault too, in most cases. A lot of people like to blame "gland problems" and "slow metabolisms", but the truth of the matter is that if they ate less and exercised more the vast majority of them would not be obese, or at least would be far less overweight and would have less medical problems. And I will bet this will be pretty unpopular here, but some victims of violent crimes, and even sexual assaults, put themselves in avoidable situations that had they not made the choice to be there would have presented the crime. That does not make the person who attacked them any less wrong, any less of an animal, and those attackers should be punished to the full extent of the law, but some of the crimes could have been prevented by not making yourself a convenient victim. I am not perfect. I'm fat myself, and experiencing some medical problems because of it. I fight my weight every day. I have a horrible family history and a lot of my relatives are dead at a young age, mostly because they chose to smoke and be overweight. So I'm not sitting in judgment from an ivory tower here, I speak from some experience. This does not make patients any less deserving of the very best care we can give them, it absolutely does not. But part of our job as healthcare providers is to educate, and the simple truth is that the lifestyles and choices of many patients contributes directly to the situations they end up in, often with very bad results.