So many of you are amazing people and nurses. The time you put in responding to posts on Allnurses really does make a difference.
BUT.
When people come here asking for advice on a situation, they are not looking for your opinion of them as a person or their behavior. You all know what threads I'm talking about.
It's one thing to point out that their behavior could potentially be dangerous to patients.
It's one thing to be honest and tell them that their future doesn't look too bright.
It's one thing to suggest they may find seeing a therapist very helpful.
It's another to tell them they are mentally ill, mock them RELENTLESSLY, or judge them. When you do this to your fellow nurses (that have just come to you for advice), you're worse than that poor, scared soul you FLAMED for thinking a drug abuser may have a bloodborne illness.
These posters are often simply desperate, scared, or just plain curious!
I know it's important to have a thick skin when you work in healthcare, and I sure as heck am not busting out the trigger-words bully†or NETY.†It's just that even in my CNA class, it was emphasized over and over that it's not our place to judge patients. Can't you afford the same courtesy to other nurses?
I'm generally a pretty quiet person, but I believe in standing up for other people. So I just had to put this out there.
What really cracks me up is the fact that nurses are the most trusted professionals and you guys pat yourself on the back for that. I wonder how many of the people who were polled would feel if they knew that nurses in general have a lot of contempt for the people they treat. I mean, how many threads have there been regarding the subject of patients that annoy you. Drug seekers, obese, people who come to the ER for stupid reasons, family member who annoy you and so on.
I can't imagine it would come as any great shock to patients that nurses complain about them in private, or that some nurses secretly are contemptuous of certain patient populations. They know that people complain about other people behind their backs, after all.
I don't think nurses are considered the most trusted profession because they assume we're Pollyannas who never think mean thoughts about anyone. We're trusted because we're the ones at the bedside advocating for them. Which has nothing to do with what we might or might not say anonymously on an online message board.
You mean you failed the endlessly compassionate and giving portion of your licensing exam?
You know, I've worked in healthcare for a little over 10 years, and somehow this stereotype of nurses is totally new to me. Maybe my little corner of the PNW has been spared, but the whole reason I got into nursing was because I worked in tele on an ICU where the nurses were gutsy, opinionated, rowdy, crass, and skilled like ninjas.* They're my exemplars of everything I want to be as a nurse (I've got opinionated, rowdy, and crass down so far). With that background, this thread went in a very strange direction for me, because whether or not someone is rude wasn't part of my mental image of nurses, where it seems natural that some will be awesome and rude and others will be awesome and nice.
I thought about posting in here three or four times, but I figured it was just some part of nursing culture I'd managed to avoid, maybe because I'm a guy. Though all of my exemplars are women... I don't know.
* They also drink a lot, a hobby at which I'm also fairly proficient.
The vast majority of people here who invoke the "endlessly compassionate", "it's a calling", yadda yadda yadda, etc. stereotypes are either nursing students or else very recently licensed. I don't see too many experienced nurses clinging to these beliefs.
Drug seekers, obese, people who come to the ER for stupid reasons, family member who annoy you and so on.
While you're over there being the Patron Saint of Dilaudid and Back Strength, the rest of us are frustrated. Genuinely frustrated.
While the rest of the world, spouses and friends included, think we should just deal with constant disrespect and physical pain because we have joined the noble work force of nursing, the rest of us here know better. We need this unscripted, boundary free time to vent our frustrations to those who GET IT.
The mom bringing a kid into the ED for a stuffy nose is wasting the resources needed to save a life in a trauma room. The obese patient who absolutely refuses to help turn herself is causing her own CHF and kidney failure while also causing MY back failure. But hey!!! She has us nurses to take care of her because we are, after all, Angels!
Family members..... Ohhhhh family members...... Grandma looks mortified while grandson berates me for taking too long getting a soda for his wife. So next time? He gets it himself, only he grabs the LABELED coke zero that belonged to the patient across the hall and since we don't stock coke zero, now I have THAT grandma's family member being nasty to me.
Ohhhhh and then we have Dilaudid Diana. The one who screams down the hallway instead of pressing her button because she KNOWS it'll get a faster response. Her pain level of 10 isn't responding to the 4 mg IV morphine q2h, and since it's not due for another hour, can she please switch to the one thing that always works. You know, that one that begins with a D.
And you better believe I will be good to this patient group. I'll be damn good to them while I do my best to comfort them, educate them, help them recover successfully. I'll treat them with compassion and respect. I'll smile, I'll be charming, I'll answer every question thoroughly. Heck, I might even share my phone extension with them.
After I clock out with my back SCREAMING in pain and wishing (for just a second) I'd swapped Diana's morphine with saline, I drive home, trying to shake off the day. But I can't. And my spouse really doesn't get it when I tell him, "she weighed 450 lbs, was weeping from her legs and smelled somewhere between butt crack and yeast," but you guys do.
I'll have frustrated, ugly thoughts to share, and you will all get it. With any luck, you'll realize I would never share these thoughts within earshot of my patients. But here, I am free to roam about the Internet. That doesn't make me a bad person. Heck, that doesn't even make me a bad nurse. It makes me human.
I make no apologies for that, because getting it off my chest, and sharing some laughs here with people who know what kind of day I just had makes me able to go to bed, wake up at 0400 tomorrow, and then do it all over again.
While you're over there being the Patron Saint of Dilaudid and Back Strength, the rest of us are frustrated. Genuinely frustrated.
While the rest of the world, spouses and friends included, think we should just deal with constant disrespect and physical pain because we have joined the noble work force of nursing, the rest of us here know better. We need this unscripted, boundary free time to vent our frustrations to those who GET IT.
The mom bringing a kid into the ED for a stuffy nose is wasting the resources needed to save a life in a trauma room. The obese patient who absolutely refuses to help turn herself is causing her own CHF and kidney failure while also causing MY back failure. But hey!!! She has us nurses to take care of her because we are, after all, Angels!
Family members..... Ohhhhh family members...... Grandma looks mortified while grandson berates me for taking too long getting a soda for his wife. So next time? He gets it himself, only he grabs the LABELED coke zero that belonged to the patient across the hall and since we don't stock coke zero, now I have THAT grandma's family member being nasty to me.
Ohhhhh and then we have Dilaudid Diana. The one who screams down the hallway instead of pressing her button because she KNOWS it'll get a faster response. Her pain level of 10 isn't responding to the 4 mg IV morphine q2h, and since it's not due for another hour, can she please switch to the one thing that always works. You know, that one that begins with a D.
And you better believe I will be good to this patient group. I'll be damn good to them while I do my best to comfort them, educate them, help them recover successfully. I'll treat them with compassion and respect. I'll smile, I'll be charming, I'll answer every question thoroughly. Heck, I might even share my phone extension with them.
After I clock out with my back SCREAMING in pain and wishing (for just a second) I'd swapped Diana's morphine with saline, I drive home, trying to shake off the day. But I can't. And my spouse really doesn't get it when I tell him, "she weighed 450 lbs, was weeping from her legs and smelled somewhere between butt crack and yeast," but you guys do.
I'll have frustrated, ugly thoughts to share, and you will all get it. With any luck, you'll realize I would never share these thoughts within earshot of my patients. But here, I am free to roam about the Internet. That doesn't make me a bad person. Heck, that doesn't even make me a bad nurse. It makes me human.
I make no apologies for that, because getting it off my chest, and sharing some laughs here with people who know what kind of day I just had makes me able to go to bed, wake up at 0400 tomorrow, and then do it all over again.
Reposting just 'cause.
Ruby Vee, thanks for reminding me why I could never move down South. I prefer yelling for stuff down the hall.
I'm not seeing why having a giggle at someone posting that she "doesn't need a Tudor, never needed a Tudor" is so mean? With just a typo/misspelling, it would be a little funny....with it being complete with a capital T to make it a proper noun it became downright funny. At least to those of us with a sense of humor that appreciates it, anyway.
It wasn't mean, I'm sorry but that just is going to far in the whole 'mean/rude' discussion. I'VE certainly made typos that have resulted in a funny comment being made and I didn't dissolve into tears about it....and frankly if the person who WROTE the "Tudor" comment found it so horribly mean I'd have to wonder why the hypersensitivity to a few innocuous comments?
No one indicated the person posting it was stupid, or ignorant, or uneducated, or---be honest here--anything WHATSOEVER about the person who wrote it. It was the slip in the post itself that caused the reaction, the humor to be noted.
For heaven's sake, people can't even enjoy themselves at ALL without someone getting upset, can they?
I had a friend. Five years ago, she had a baby. I got her a gift certificate to her favorite spa. She sent me a thank you text. Because of me, she finally got out of the house with the girls for some member.
Do you think I will EVER let go of the hysterical laughter that spelling fail gave me?
I had a friend. Five years ago, she had a baby. I got her a gift certificate to her favorite spa. She sent me a thank you text. Because of me, she finally got out of the house with the girls for some member.
Do you think I will EVER let go of the hysterical laughter that spelling fail gave me?
BrandonLPN, LPN
3,358 Posts
I can't imagine it would come as any great shock to patients that nurses complain about them in private, or that some nurses secretly are contemptuous of certain patient populations. They know that people complain about other people behind their backs, after all.
I don't think nurses are considered the most trusted profession because they assume we're Pollyannas who never think mean thoughts about anyone. We're trusted because we're the ones at the bedside advocating for them. Which has nothing to do with what we might or might not say anonymously on an online message board.