I’ve told this anecdote before; EggNogg’s thread was closed and he was banned before I had a chance to post it in there; but hopefully someone who didn’t see it before will find it of interest.
When I was six years old, I fell off the back porch (one story off the hard, stony ground. It was a weird house). I don’t know how I knew of the connection between head injuries and loss of memory, but I was terrified all the way to the ER, repeating my name, address and so forth over and over. As is usually the case in a non-life or death ER visit, a nurse saw me before a doctor did. She reassured me that I would not go into a coma or any of the other things of which I was mortally afraid. When the doctor strode in, I perkily informed him, “Oh, the nurse said I’m fine!” He gave my mom this look, like “Oh, these kids…she actually thinks the NURSE knows something!” But that was part of her job: putting people at ease.
So in addition to all their other skills (I’d love to see EggNogg try to insert an IV), they also keep the patients in an amenable state of mind. The ones who don’t go in there with an unshakeable attitude, that is.
Thank you Rilchiam. Nursing is one hell of a profession. Having worked as a psychiatric and geriatric nursing assistant in the US (too much hassle in the UK) and been a patient on both sides of the pond, I can attest that nurses are very under-rated and taken for granted by doctors and family/patients.
Though I do have stories of being very nearly killed on a couple of occasions by careless (clueless) nurses, for the most part, they are what keeps the system going.
Nurses are very much needed in health care, and there is a shortage of them…the average age has increased, and many nursing schools cannot keep up with the demand (or they have lack of demand). Part of the problem is lack of adequate faculty and retiring faculty (nurses can get master’s degree in nursing, I don’t know if they can also get PhD.'s).
Thank you, Rilchiam (and Washte and KarlGrenze). I had a pretty lousy couple of days at work last week and EggNogg’s comments upset more than they might normally have. It’s nice to be reminded that there are patients out there who appreciate the care they receive.
Nurses are highly educated, and take many of the same courses MDs do in their first year: patient assessment, anatomy, pathophysiology, pharmacology, OB, diagnostics, etc., often using the same textbooks. This includes ADN (Associate Degree in Nursing) students. The NCLEX exam is required for becoming an RN, and is, by all accounts, a bitch; as a matter of fact, nursing students buy more reference material than law students.
The nursing shortage is real and becoming desperate. However, due in part to rising wages and that when the economy goes south, nursing enrollment goes up, most schools are filled to capacity. But, as KarlGrenze says, faculty are often inadeqately trained to teach well, though that is changing as more Master and Ph.D. programs (yes, they can get a Ph.D.) are adding courses in teaching and publishers are reacting to this by seeking authors in the area. Another problem is that instructors are usually burned-out practitioners rather than teachers or theorists.
Saying that nurses are those who were too dumb to get into med school is like saying those who can, do and those who can’t, teach. The good ones (who, I think, outnumber the bad) are called to their profession out of a desire to help those who need help, out of a desire to make a difference in at least someone’s life if not the world. They are the first line of care, and they are the ones who often are the advocates for patients when too-busy docs (another debate in itself) miss something or get in too big of a hurry. And they usually do so as overworked and underpaid peons being harangued by ungrateful, rude idiots who don’t realize that they’re on their fourth shift in two days, being ordered around by docs and interns, and having to deal with administrators who want more out of them for less money.
[deep breath]
It didn’t take me long just being around nursing students to learn this. Perhaps Mr. Egg-on-His-Face would do well to follow a nurse around for a while before he speaks on this subject again.
His nonsensical rant about how useless and dumb nurses are was just an obvious trolling ploy, even before he admitted it. I would venture to say that very few people who have needed serious care would agree with his inflammatory statements. I’ve had my share of good and bad nurses over the years I’ve received health care, but I’ll say this: When the chips are down and you need someone to care for you, it’s the nurses doing the dirty work, reassuring you, comforting you, and making sure your recovery goes smoothly.
When I had my back surgery, I had 2 outstanding nurses in addition to the other great nurses on staff. One sat with me on her dinner break and watched TV while she ate because she knew I was alone (and in a room by myself) and wanted to keep me company. The other nurse would come in, rub my back where he could, turn me as gently as possible when I had to be turned (every fucking 30 minutes for the first day or two) and bring me ice cream at night when he took his break. (and feed it to me, I might add, since I couldn’t sit up)
I will never, ever forget how good they were to me and how much they helped my recovery. I made sure they knew that, too, and that the hospital knew how lucky they were to have such caring people on staff.
Many people can learn the medical skills required to do the job of a nurse, but the kinds of people (in general) that go into a field like that are caring, self sacrificing people. If you were ill and had no or poor nursing care, you would certainly suffer.
Whilst studying for my CNA License (Certified Nursing Assistant - equivalent to an SEN in the UK I’ve been told) I was put in a secured psych ward with 28 patients under 24 hour watch and 4-6 who were monitored. I was trained up, then as soon as my classes finished (before taking the State exam) the ward was mine. No one else wanted to work with these nutters. When university finished on Friday in Wyoming at 1pm I hopped in the car and drove 65 miles south into Colorado to begin my shift. Worked until midnight then went out to the car to sleep a few hours. Back on the ward at 530 am to bathe and such, made sure everyone got their meds, fed everyone, changed everyone as needed, made all the beds… everything done by myself. My shift ended again between 12 am and 1am. Back out to the car for a few hours sleep, then back on the ward Sunday morning between 530am and 6am. Made sure people were ready for any family visits, more baths, more meds, more food, more beds… My shift would then end between 8 and 9pm. Then another drive 65 miles back home, ready for university the next morning.
Oh, did I mention this was in winter? January forward, sleeping in my car in temperatures as low as -50???
But, I loved my job. Loved my patients. They loved me, but the senior nurses and doctors didn’t give a rat’s patooty as long as these patients were being looked after.
Why don’t I do it in the UK? They wanted to charge me an outrageous amount to ‘investigate’ my nursing skills and qualifications. When the NHS is pulling in nursing staff from countries that have appalling health services themselves? Nah.
When I was in the hospital in labor with Aaron, my nurses were super. My day-shift nurse had also been my childbirth educator, and she really helped me get through it. I think it was because of her that I was able to go as long without pain medication as I did and was able to keep a positive attitude, which made labor a lot easier to go through.
There are some nurses who shouldn’t be in nursing, of course. I’ve worked with some who went into nursing because $20 an hour as a nurse was a lot better than $10 an hour slinging hash. I’ve had the “privilege” of working with nurses who couldn’t get it together, and who looked for a scapegoat when the quality of their work was called into question. Fortunately, these are in the vast minority, I think.
Rilchiam: I, also, am indebted to a nurse. Astronaut Collins’ niece was a military nurse at Fort Dewitt Army Hospital when she saved my life. In that instance, the twit doctor’s the one who put my life in peril.
As the son of a Nurse Practitioner (and a damn good one) who spent a good long time as a regular nurse, thank you Rilchiam. And thanks to all the nurses out there, who keep fighting the good fight.
I suppose it’s here because EggNogg put his troll here. But I’m moving it to MPSIMS.
I was in the hospital two weeks ago, and nurses did most of my caregiving. I only saw a doctor for a few minutes at a time once each day. I must say that the nurses tried to make me as comfortable as possible. I’d also like to say that it’s perfectly acceptable to thank a nurse (or whatever medical staff) for a gentle blooddrawing or other procedure.
Like what Qadgop said…While Dr’s provide the medications and surgery, it is generally the nurses who provide the real ‘healing’ within a hospital environment. No offence Qaddie, but nurses are the one’s at the coal-face of pain and suffering, generally (IMO) knowing MORE about medicine and care than the surgeons who bop in to see the patient once a day (if yer lucky!).
Anecdote: a few years ago my daughter had been in a serious car accident, and after surgery/rehab etc, developed ‘new’ pain about 3 months later. She was readmitted to hospital for observation, and basically left in the care of the nurses for a week because the Dr’s did not do any tests to determine what was wrong. She was accused of malingering and it was recommended she see a shrink.
However, there was one nurse who had tended to my kid over that time, and she whispered to me that she thought my daughter had developed osteomyelitis or perhaps septic arthritis as a result of the fixateurs and the surgery. She was not allowed to make a diagnosis, but gently pushed the quack into doing further investigation. Guess what? Her diagnosis was spot on!
Having waited a week already, the disease had become pretty well established (and gruesome) but I thank this lady every day that she had the sense and the guts to stand her ground. It could’ve been MUCH worse, with the prospect of total hip destruction only a few days away!
My best friend is in nursing school - she’s graduating this year. She has been on both sides of the job - she had chronic myelogenous leukemia when she was 15, and it was the fanstastic nurses that she had at Toronto Children’s Hospital that made her choose her career. She is a fantastic, cheerful person, who always knows how to put someone at ease. She will be a wonderful nurse - in fact, she’s received nothing but compliments from her summer job at a geriatric hospital, and from all of her internships. She has the bravery to face a lot of tough medical situations, and truly feels for her patients. She has called me to talk about how upset she was when her patients died, or when something sad happened in whatever ward she was working in. She even once called to cry about how unfair it was that a patient lost her baby - my best friend was feeling guilty that she hadn’t been able to help, all while KNOWING that she herself couldn’t even have kids thanks to her disease… she has that much heart…she’s one of my heros.
I had a major accident about five years ago (nine months in rehab - it was THAT bad!!) I had great doctors, but I can honestly say that were it not for the nurses I would never have recovered physically and definitely not emotionally. Now I get to work with dozens of wonderful nurses.
Thank you all - you’re very special people who work very hard in difficult circumstances, and you don’t get to hear that often enough.
I gotta second (or third?) the childbirth nod. Sure, I needed a doctor in the end to get the kid out of me, but it was the nurses who made the long labor bearable. They were knowledgeable, supportive, professional, and so caring it brings me to tears thinking about it three years later.
