Shocked

In the cab last night I heard a most disturbing remark. Early in the evening three nurses around forty years of age travelled to an inner City restaurant. They were in high spirits laughing and joking whilst discussing various colleagues and patients.

I wasn’t paying much attention being content to listen to the swimming action from the Commonwealth Games. Anyway, medical jargon is a language all it’s own and precludes outside interest or interpretation.

So when the passengers noticeably lowered their voices, indicating a sensitive topic, I was disinclined to eavesdrop. Until that is, one passenger broke the muffled chat by audibly declaring,

‘No way, listen. Everybody has killed somebody. If they believe they haven’t, then they’re kidding themselves’.

This statement shocked me, not so much by the content as it’s common knowledge hospitals kill people through negligence. But more so due to the breezy tone by which it was delivered. The message being, 'Hey, that's life'. Excuse the pun.

An hour later, two well dressed women were immersed in a similar conversation discussing ‘theatre’ and ‘locums’. I figured they were medical practitioners of some sort. ‘Are you guys nurses ?’, I asked. ‘No’, came the reply, ‘but we know a lot about them’.

After relating the comment by my earlier passenger, I asked them for an opinion. ‘Well, nothing is a surprise in hospitals', one replied. 'You just have to look at the way some nurses drink - it’s a wonder they make it to work sometimes. In fact a well known hangover cure used by nurses is a shot of oxygen’.

I suppose one shouldn’t be too shocked at such revelations given the life and death pressures nurses are subjected to. Or even when they display a blase attitude to what must often be an awful job.

Yet still, to hear such comments from health professionals is a little disconcerting. Hopefully when I next go to hospital, there’s plenty of oxygen on hand.

Comments

[Nick]

Adrian,
Again it is a topic I know a little about. I used to go out with some interns that were specialising in trauma. We were all in in our late 20's. Now I used to tear it up quite a bit but these guys and girls were doing all nighters then scooting into work the next day. Mate it goes on, in all fields across the board. You name a profession and it is there. I understand that these guys are health professionals and that should be the differance but other jobs are doing the smae thing. All doing high risk and highly skilled.

[phil]

Adrian - my guess would be that there's a whole of stuff behind this. I can't imagine what it must take to do nursing duties day in day out, but the better half has been in the health game for a long time and reports that there is a superiority mindset within nursing that is at odds with the (general?) public image of being very put upon. I'd guess that many nurses genuinely do it out of what you might call altruism or the desire to do good, but I imagine many just do it because it's a job they can get. We ran across one of those just yesterday in a situation that will have direct implications for our family's wellbeing (finding a high care aged bed for my father) and it's got us thinking twice - not an easy choice when aged care beds are hard to get.

[Kim]

When it comes to end of life issues, make sure it is the nurses on the floor and not the doc's you cozy up to and have on your side.

Too many folks in an ICU room? Even when they know it's the very end? Nurses decide.

Info received? Nurses.

As it should be.

They work harder, care more and give more.

And I am not a nurse.

[Aurelius]

There is no excuse for this "ours is a hard job, so we're exempt from rules or questioning" attitude that nurses and similar professions have.
I agree with Phil in that they - nurses, cops etc - have the biggest egos and superiority complexes. Most wont admit it, but those who know them know its true.

[phil]

Kim: thanks for the tips. Having someone in the family who understands the power structures, as well as a lot of the clinical stuff, not to mention 'the system' itself and how it works, is like gold. I have no idea how those folks, who come into such a situation cold, manage. So far all involved have been more than helpful, but it only takes one encounter that sends out alarm signals to cause an entire rethink.

[Wil]

QUOTE:
"they - nurses, cops etc - have the biggest egos and superiority complexes."

Of course we do. Its called "self-confidence", something few will ever aspire to. Would you really want a doctor, nurse or cop around who was not confident in themself?

[ab]

Sorry to be harsh, but you guys would have to be dreaming if you think only nurses are ill-prepared for work, you should see the amount of alcohol pilots and air crew down(& up) it aint pretty. btw doctors are not innocent bystanders and there are porbably few florence nightingales - nursing is just a job like any other but if I had to clean up excrement, vomit, put up with being groped and manhandled, and 'dress' corpses, I think I'd be inclined to need a couple of drinks after work too.