I found this on allnurses and can understand everything this poor girl is saying. It is all true. Families and Patients behave this way because of their social conditioning about Nurses and because of unrealistic views they have as a result of media portrayals of Nurses, Doctors, and Hospitals. A hundred years ago sick and dying patients were cared for at home. Families understood first hand what illness and death actually look like. The sick and the terminal wasted away,developed sores and became delirious at home with their family members watching and doing everything possible. No Nurses or Doctors were around to blame it all on.
I recently read an account of the death of Willie Lincoln, a 12 year old boy in 1862. His father was the president of the United States. Willie contracted Typhoid fever and screamed in agony as his bowel perfed. This sickness and suffering went on for months. He was treated at home, in his parents bed. He wasted away to nothing and lost his mind through delirium. His family had front row seats to the reality of sickness and death. They had no Nurse around to blame it on. If they had a Nurse I doubt they would have started screaming at her because pharmacy delivered medication late or because the x ray department couldn't fit Willie in for an xray that day. They would have been grateful that those things existed. I doubt they would have accused her of Starving their son when he got past the point of being able to eat and digest food, a usual part of terminal illness. I think they would have been intelligent enough to realise that Nurses have no control over those things.
People today have a very sanitised view of it all thanks to TV. Therefore they cannot handle the realities of sickness and death. The reality is that terminal sickness and death looks like hell, even with the best of modern medicine. When they are confronted with this reality they go absolutely apeshit on the very people killing themselves to try and help. So very sad. They are going to embitter every Nurse we ever train and run them the hell away from the bedside. The following was written by a Nurse who has been in the profession for 5 years.
When I was in nursing school, I was so excited to get finished and get a job. I thought I would enjoy doing nursing tasks all day...meds, IVs, injections, dressing changes, catheters, assessments. I was so proud to tell people I was becoming a nurse. My job would be exciting all day long. I would be working hard and helping people. I would get respect...
But 5 years later, ha! What a joke! Don't get me wrong. I am grateful to have a job in this bad economy, but nursing sure turned out to be a disappointment. I never thought that I would be worked to death the way nurses are. I never thought I would be talked to like a dog the way I am by patients, their families, people from other departments, and some doctors. I never thought bosses would be so quick to stab you in the back and try to get you in trouble. I thought I would be a valued employee and appreciated for what I did because I am a nurse who truly has a heart, cares about my patients, likes to get along well with others, and work as a team.
Instead, as a nurse you are treated like a peon. You have a team of 15 patients and are running like a mad woman to take care of all of them properly while your manager sits on her butt looking for any one tiny thing you might miss (while not offering to lift a finger to help you). Families sit in the room watching you like a hawk assuming you are going to hurt their family member..... Griping because you have to turn people with skin issues or check for incontinence. Griping because you have to change an IV. The other day I had a family member sitting there watching me like a hawk as I had to change the patient's IV site. Mind you the patient was an obese lady with huge arms and had had to have deep lines in the past due to difficult access. She said to me very rudely, "You get ONE stick, then somebody else is gonna do it." Then proceeded to stand and watch me with her arms folded across her chest. Excuse me, since when does the family dictate my job? That really burnt me up. Fortunately I got her IV on the first stick, but I have to take crap like that from people or I would probably be written up by my manager. I never thought nursing would be like this. When I visited people in the hospital before I was a nurse I had respect for the medical staff and would never dream of talking to them the way I am talked to.
You are blamed for everything. Doctor comes in late today? Nurse is yelled at about it by family. Doctor changes a medicine and doesn't tell the family about it or the Nurse? Nurse is grilled about it. Lab wakes patient early for blood draw? Nurse is yelled at about it. Doc orders stat MRI at 5 pm on a Friday? Nurse is yelled at about it by Radiology. Assistant doesn't check patient for incontinence while nurse is trying to medicate a critically patient in the other room? Nurse is yelled at about it by family. Medicine is late from pharmacy? Nurse is yelled at about it. Dietary doesn't send up a food tray for a patient or send up what the patient ordered then refuses to communicate with the Nurse? Nurse is yelled at about it by patient and family. Family members interrupt you while you are trying to calculate a cardiac drips that the doctor ordered to stop your heart patient from dying to ask where mum's nightdress went. Then they throw a tantrum because your won't stop what you are doing to look for it. What the hell makes these people think that a Nurse with multiple patients can provide them with service? Are they all mad? We can do nothing right. It has really been disheartening. We go into nursing to help people and instead are treated like crap. I can honestly say that nursing is the job I have felt I have been the least respected in of all the jobs I have ever had. It has just been very disappointing. I WANT to like nursing because I spent all of this time getting trained and getting licensed but wow.
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