I know there are other threads, but I was wondering what my fellow school nurses thought of this topic that has been blowing up my Facebook newsfeed.
On my page, I wrote:
"I can't think of a day in nursing that I DIDN'T use my stethoscope.
As the school nurse, there's no doctor on call and no other medical professional in the building. I have an obligation to the parents of an asthmatic child or a student having an allergic reaction to rely on my education to make the call of how to treat in my office or decide if an ER visit is necessary.
Hopefully, this will bring some light to those who don't understand the importance of the nurse's assessment."
I'm not sure why everyone keeps calling their response and apology. Nothing about it was an apology. It was a response. That's it. It wasn't meant to be an apology, as evidenced by the lack of apology and the blame being put on nurses for not listening.
I've actually enjoyed the brouhaha in the last few days. Our hospital got together yesterday to do a photo. I've loved the memes and photos this has generated - I have laughed a lot in the last couple of days. We've seen a lot of support from physicians and other medical staff.
Came on AN this morning to a thread sort of chastising nurses for getting all upset about this and uniting to complain about what happened on that tv show. Instead of uniting over the real problems in nursing like under-staffing.
Why can't we do both?
One thing mentioned was the amount of bullying or lateral violence in nursing. Truly, I still have a hard time with the NETY crowd.
There is a Zero Tolerance movement all over America regarding bullying - and it is present in our schools.
I've mentioned it before but I think "Zero Tolerance" goes overboard in defining some normal school yard stuff as bullying and then true bullying gets shoved to the side because we are focusing on the kid who pushed his way to the front of the line in the cafeteria or who took someone's ball cap and turned it backwards on another kid's head.
Same thing with nursing - many times here on AN someone comes on to complain about being "bullied" and yet, when more details emerge it shows it wasn't really bullying.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt
I'm sure the family of my patient who passed away at home remembers my stethoscope, as I tried my darndest to get that apical. More importantly, it is nice to see nurses band together to support each other, but geez, maybe we could try to keep that level of support when those among us are hazing/back-stabbing/throwing our fellow nurses under the bus. Just a thought. It's amazing how easily such a large group came together after one silly comment from one dummy on t.v.
More than that, I'd like to see my fellow nurses make an effort to educate instead of jumping to insulting. To be taken seriously as a professional, we need to act professionally. And the slew of memes insulting the talk show hosts and insulting their intelligence does not show diplomacy.
Not to take away from the wonderful docs out there, but most of the time IF he/she has a stethoscope, it's one they "borrowed from a nearby nurse (never buy a black one, the docs inadvertently walk off with them lol )
Not to take away from the wonderful docs out there, but most of the time IF he/she has a stethoscope, it's one they "borrowed from a nearby nurse (never buy a black one, the docs inadvertently walk off with them lol )
I worked with this MD/guy at Urgent Care - he's gone now but he never had a stethoscope or pen. If you loaned him either, you'd have to chase him down to get it back. As it evolved no one would let him borrow their stethoscope and told him he couldn't. He finally scrounged around in a drawer and found one that was missing the rubber ear piece from the metal tube of the stethoscope. He grabbed a roll of tape and started making rounds on the metal tube with the tape until it was wrapped enough to make somewhat of a seal so hear could hear out of it....
I have a nice littman with an electronic amplifier that my dad (God rest his soul) bought for me right before he passed on 8 years ago. It has my name engraved on it. Once a Dr tried to walk off with it after asking to check it out. He became adamant that it was his in front of my manager, who acted like it was his and my behavior was unbelievable. I flipped up the name and said "unless you're Nancy Nurse, RN" this is not your scope. He handed it back to me and walked off. My manager then had the cajones to ask how I could afford such a nice one...grrr...just glad I got it back
I bought a beautiful chocolate colored Littman Card III with copper earpieces because I hadn't seen one like it. Now I've seen three others. :/
But it's a beautiful one and it's mine.
I LOVE that combination. My master cardiology is olive with smoke finish (and has my name on it, so I know when our surgeons or cardiologists steal it, since they are the ones who take it).
ixchel
4,547 Posts
I'm not sure why everyone keeps calling their response and apology. Nothing about it was an apology. It was a response. That's it. It wasn't meant to be an apology, as evidenced by the lack of apology and the blame being put on nurses for not listening.