subacute vs acute..what's your guilt?

[bratmobile]

So we all want to be RN's at the hospital..I lack those precious years; of "experience" and am doing time in sub acute rehab..I am sickened (physically nauseated) by the fact we have a very elderly getleman (94yo)who lost his wife to cancer,, we put him in the van to go to her funeral.day after he got there...the next day therapy has him doing leg raises and complains he is not trying..I am ashamed,,I want to be a nurse to help people get better but I have become part of some ugly machine that keeps people who shouldn't be there to keep census looking good for corporate..how is acute nursing compared? Do you find yourself ashamed for sending people not really ready to d/c?....where can you be a nurse and do the right thing?

[FORTHELOVEOF!!!!]

I really feel for you, I have always wanted to work in nursing homes because I love the geriatric population, but things like this keep me from it. In the hospital we do send people before they are ready, it's only going to get worse too. However, if this situation happened in my hospital, I would have pulled the the therapist to the side and filled her in on the situation and got her off his back a bit. I hope you find what you are looking for, have you considered Hospice? I have only heard wonderful things from hospice nurses.

[RNperdiem, RN]

I sense some mixed feelings. How was the therapist speaking to the patient? Was she speaking out of concern that an otherwise spry old man might go into a deep decline unless he maintained his physical activities however sad he was? Or was she being rough with him?

Nursing is a front row seat to human suffering. The hospitals are going to have their share of human suffering too. I have seen lots of it especially in units like Burns and Neurosurgical.

The truth is we often cannot make anyone "get better", and there is pain that no drug can relieve. If you accept your limitations about what nursing can and can't do, you focus on what you can do.