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Saturday, July 19, 2014

the land of make believe


I work in the land of make believe. In this land all of the nurses are perfect. We never call in sick. We have a sweet smile and a kind word for every patient, even that drunk guy who shit and peed himself. Intead of reacting angrily to being called a "fuckin' bitch", we de-escalate the crap out of that person for an hour if we have to. Cause thats the kind of nurses that we are...

We think all of the doctors are perfect. We don't mind if OCD doc orders 50 unnecessary tests, you just never know what evil lurks after all. We understand her concerns about liability. Who wouldn't? And if candy man doc orders dilaudid q 5 min, we give it with glee and push it in rapidly just like the drug seekers want us to. They are in pain after all...

We understand why the nurse upstairs is in an isolation room, busy, at dinner, on the phone, in the bathroom, and we wait patiently for her to call us back. Housekeeping is our best friend and we don't mind if it takes 2 hours to clean that "stat clean". Once again we will use our "de-escalation" skills to talk the family down. Thats what we do..

When the lobby is full and back pain Barney has come up to the desk for the 10th time in the last half hour, we will sympathize and offer him a cart in back of triage, who cares if there are already 8 carts lined up back there? There is always room for one more..

Last but most certainly not least, we don't mind going 6 or 8 hours without a break. Our patients need us and if it means missing a meal to take care of them, well - do you think florence nightengale every got a break? I don't think so...

Our ER is perfect. The nurses are perfect, it goes without saying our docs are perfect. Our care is perfect. We follow all the rules. We do everything they tell us to do. We never complain. We love everybody and want everyone to be happy...

How was your day?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nursing is dead in the water no one appreciates or understands the thankless task we have inherited. It is a thankless task and it makes
me wonder if it attracts people who have some degree of self loathing to
enter the profession. It is an emotional rape every day and my rings are sore. Nurse from across the pond. :-/