Born of Frustration

Somehow you found me and my little blog. And you're horrified (or in complete agreement). Hate nursing? Surely the title is nothing more than a shameless marketing tactic. The author doesn’t really mean that, right? Wrong.

I hate being a nurse.

H-A-T-E it.

‘But it’s such a noble, honorable profession! Nurses make such a good living! They’re angels! What about Chicken Soup for the Nurse’s Soul?!’

Soup won’t fix this. Forget that I hate chicken noodle soup, or even that I liked the aforementioned book just fine. The truth is… we have a problem. And it’s getting bigger by the minute. Nursing, especially emergency room nursing in my humble opinion, is a terrible job.

‘If you don’t like being a nurse than go do something else’, you say to yourself with a smug smile.

Yeah. Cause most people love what they do for a living? Come on, now. The majority of folks are dutifully punching those time cards each day because they have to, not because they want to. And besides, I’m not crazy about flushing six years of college and another seven years in practice down the toilet just because I’m unhappy.

‘Nurses are supposed to be caring. That’s their job.’

Wrong again. My job is actually far more unrealistic than that, though you bring up an interesting point; patients, hospital managers, and just about every other self-righteous person on the planet expects nurses to care. And many of them do. It’s why the majority of healthcare professionals sign up in the first place. But you don’t really think that caring is limitless or unconditional, do you?

‘Ahhh…’

Well it isn’t. You can’t pay someone to care about you. Think about it for a minute. I care about my children unconditionally. My husband, friends, coworkers, and everyone else has to earn my concern, or at least avoid destroying that which, however modest, might naturally exist. I am not an angel. I am a human being.

‘Okay, well what’s the problem?’

Grab a cup of coffee. This could take a while.


1)Conflict of Interest

There was a time in America’s not so distant past when people were nice to each other. Considerate even. They were more humble; more gracious. Kindness seemed contagious. Old movies featured scenes with loving nurses wiping the sweaty brows of their grateful patients. It was beautiful. What happened? I sure don’t know, but somehow entitlement killed humility and that is indeed a very big crime.

Entitlement now plagues every profession in this country and healthcare is certainly the worse for it. Patients demand more and give less than ever before. At the hospital where I work about fifty percent of the patients are on state medical insurance, meaning that they don’t have to pay a dime for their visits, and another twenty five percent or more are simply uninsured. What do they expect in return for free service?

-Immediate care completed at the speed of light
-Warm smiles from kind and eager healthcare team members who are clean and professionally dressed
- To be medicated, bathed, fed, toileted and the like at a moments notice
- For their seventeen family and friends to have ample room to sprawl and hover over the medical staff’s every room
- For treatment areas to be impeccably clean at just the right temperature
-Unequivocal diagnoses with one hundred percent cure rates (cures must again cost nothing and take no time or effort on their part)
- Their doctors and nurses to be just as horrified by their problems as they are
- For no one else to need the attention of “their” healthcare providers
- And of course, for their doctors and nurses to be fluent in whatever language they speak

‘Okay, so maybe a tad lofty, but I still don’t get the conflict of interest part.’

Let me explain. Patients aren’t the only subgroups who have become rather entitled. Nurses and doctors also have a few modest expectations. They would just love it if:

-Emergency departments weren’t closing nationwide, due to grossly inadequate state medical reimbursements, at the speed of light
-Patients were friendly, gracious, and had the courtesy to at least rid themselves of corrosive body odor before visiting our home away from home
- Patients would eat, take their regularly scheduled medications, and perhaps visit the john before arriving, rather than needing all of these things handled for them
- People would appreciate that we can’t exactly work around your seventeen visitors in our tiny rooms very easily
-All patients and visitors would consider that just maybe the medical staff does not also function as engineering staff, and that room temperatures are not within our control
- People would realize that we are not psychics, and that often if a cure is available, it takes discipline and a bit of cash for that cure to be effective
- Patients would consider, just for a moment, that the same medical professional who is having to nod as they hear about your terrible cold, are the same individuals who have to shock lifeless bodies and crack open chests on children
-Patients and families would take note of their surroundings, as there is a 95% chance that you are not the sickest person your healthcare team must worry about
- Patients and their family members would care enough to even try to learn the primary language of the country where the likely free service is being provided

You see, I went to school for a long time and have worked hard to be in the position that I now hold. I don’t really think I deserve to be cussed at, threatened, or assaulted by some of the horrendous smells our guests are capable of unleashing. So, if I feel entitled to my list, and you feel entitled to yours, than by golly, we have a conflict of interest.