"No nurses of color....."

[Queen2u]

What in the world are we supposed to do when a patient makes it known that they "don't want any nurses of color taking care of them"?

There was a patient on my unit last week who mentioned this (I have no idea who she told this to, administration, the doctors, I have no idea who she notified). She was in her 20s and was not on the unit for mental illness issues at all, she had an OBGYN related surgery and was not under any sedative medications, she was able-bodied with full mental capacity! Thank goodness for the patient none of the nurses (all of whom but 2 out of 50-something nurses are people of color) knew about this patient's odd request until she was discharged from the hospital.

What I really wanted to do and say were unprofessional. What are we supposed to do when someone comes to hospital with this request?

[rnlately]

There is a mid sized hospital not far from me that is an area with a very small minority population, I would expect the vast majority of their employees to be white. It has nothing to do with racism just geography.

Exactly.

[rn/writer, RN]

staff request:

please, confine further discussion to racial issues only. there are factors that make gender preference somewhat different. to combine posts about racial and gender preference in the same thread is to muddy the waters and make coherent discussion much more difficult.

thank you.

[brillohead, ADN, RN]

You said that you were hard pressed to find a nurse who was not of color. Best defense for everybody is to be diverse. I tell ya, if a facility seems to hire one race of nurses, that is a warning flag for me, and it should be for others including those of that race as well.

Out of the 80 people that started my ADN program with me, there was one black female and one black male. How on earth is a facility supposed to hire an even mix of black and white nurses when there isn't an adequate number of qualified applicants?

[GitanoRN, BSN, MSN, RN]

honestly, i found this to be more prevalent in the south when i worked at several facilities and mostly with the older patients. consequently, the staff never took it personally and they accommodated and respected the patients request. having said that, i'm appalled of some of the request of this nature being that we are in the 21 century. however, it is what it is.

[himilayaneyes]

I'm a nurse and I happen to be black. I live in south Florida which is ok for the most part. Every now and then you have a patient that requests only a white nurse or only an American nurse. Facilities that I've worked at have always tried to accommodate those requests for the sake of the nurses. One night I took care of a 90-something year old lady with dementia who kept yelling the n-word all night and waving her BP cuff like a whip (seriously). All I could do was laught it off...you have to laugh..or you'd be mad all the time.

[DeLana_RN, BSN, RN]

When I had a minority family request that I not be assigned to the pt anymore, as told to me by the offgoing (minority) nurse, for no reason other than a "personality conflict with the wife" (huh? On her part only, I did't have a conflict, but that's just an excuse anyway), I tried not to take it personally. But when the other nurse told me that the pt's wife had mocked the way I talk (I'm not a local), I couldn't help but take it personal

As I mentioned in my previous post, I would not have taken that pt back if his wife had changed her mind (it wasn't an issue, he was discharged). But I sure wish my colleague had kept the part of the mocking to herself....

If someone doesn't want a certain nurse, fine. But try to be discreet if the reason is simply prejudice or bigotry. A better way would have been for the other nurse to say: "Oh, they really love nurse X, and would like her this shift, nothing personal."

[Merlyn]

Maybe, just maybe, one day it will not matter......we can hope.....

We were getting close in the 60's then a gun shot changed the world forever.

[Penelope_Pitstop, BSN, RN]

My patient population is about 50/50 black & white (occasionally Hispanic patients and very rarely Asian patients) and the staff population is very racially diverse. I haven't really encountered anything of this nature. (I did have one elderly black lady refer to the young black female staff members as "good for nothing n-words," which was interesting).

However, we did have an actual, for real, Nazi as a patient. He hated just about everyone, especially those with any sort of Jewish name. We didn't make any special arrangements for him, and once he realized this he stopped being rude to people's faces and instead talked about them behind their backs. I think one of the resident physicians requested to be off his case because he was Jewish and *that* request was granted.

[Nascar nurse, ASN, RN]

Honestly, while I let the pt know in no uncertain terms that the language and attitude are completely inappropriate and will not be tolerated, I still accommodate the requests when making staffing, but for the nurse's sake, not the pt's. Pts like that can be really awful to the nurses they don't want. I don't want to set up a nurse to be treated like dirt, to be nit picked, or to be falsely accused of poor or negligent care.

This is my approach as well. I'm just not going to send my staff into a "battle field" of ignorance and allow them to get hurt.

[Jmiami]

"melanin deficient"!!!! I LOVE that, so hilarious!

[HM-8404, BSN, RN]

We were getting close in the 60's then a gun shot changed the world forever.

Obviously you didn't live in the south in the 60's, or was not alive to see it on the nightly news. Watch a documentary and see just how close we were to eliminating racism.

[OnlybyHisgraceRN, ASN, RN]

I would be relieved not to have to care for such an ignorant person.