My name is not Catharine. My name is "Nurse!" Not "Nurse?" Or "Nurse." But "Nurse!" Sometimes "Nuuurrrrsssse!!!!" That is what I'm called by the patients (if they can talk), their families, the doctors, social workers, dietitians, respiratory therapists, chaplains, visitors, physical therapists, everybody calls me "Nurse!" I'd sooner be called c*nt, b*tch, f*ckface or wh*re because calling me "Nurse!" amounts to a Master calling a slave. And slave I am.
And no one is just a nurse. For all the nurses out there, I respect the nursing work you do. It's one of the toughest jobs in health care. I for one could never do it.
20 Outbursts:
A nice post Happy. I have kept up with your recent dramas on here and wow what a drama. Im sure it will blow over.
*HIGH FIVE* Thanks again for the support Happy.
My experience in critical care nursing has been so different. Most of our physicians are on a first name basis with us, and in general I feel like our opinions are respected and considered. Patients and families are almost always appreciative of nursing. Thats not to say we don't get the occasional crayzee patient or Dr. Ihavenoclue and his partner, Dr. Iresentsuggestions, but thats part of the job. This post is just abysmal. Makes me appreciate my job even more, and sad for some of my peers.
I don't mind being called "nurse". It's like being called "queen", "awesome, well-informed chick" or "kick-ass lifesaving person". If you can't handle being called a nurse then you got weird problems. If someone calls me nurse, it's usually just because they've forgotten my name. Big deal.
What's really gross is when they call me "doctor". That's like calling me toupee-wearing, narcotic over-prescribing, huge differential for fibromyalgia person.
How much are you paying your PR rep?
Like Nurse K, I also do not mind being called "Nurse". There should be pride in that title. I also have enough self respect and confidence in my skills not to let another medical professional call me hither like a dog. If patients do that, I can reeducate them, and get on with my day. Kudos to you Happy for respecting nurses.
Still jonesing for happy's penis Nurse K?
Respiratory Therapists get the same treatment. I have felt as though I am some sort of machine that is expected to perform assessments, aerosol therapy, and 12-lead ECGs on the demand of the nursing staff as though I am equipment, not a person. That was only when I worked in the ER, nowhere else. When the nurse is telling me to do something that isn't actually ordered, they have talked to me like I am the one with the problem.
My very favorite thing that nurses have done to me is back when the RTs in my department "shared" the responsibility of performing 12-lead ECGs in the ER with nursing, they would wait until there were four or five ECGs piled up and then page me to do them. While I was doing the ECGs, they would keep paging me and telling me to do the ECGs that I was already busy doing. Sadly, some of the patients would be waiting almost an hour to have the ECG - with actual abnormalities present. After that, I made a policy and procedure for ECGs that complied with national standards. Now they have no excuse to dump ECGs on us anymore and must perform them if the RT is not available to do it within 10 minutes.
That said, the vast majority of nurses that I have encountered have been exceptional. Every now and again I would run into Nurse Staffabuse and have to deal with her nonsense. The reason I address nurses as simply 'Nurse' is because I work all over the hospital and have trouble remembering everybody's name.
Note to penis-jonseing Anon: We got your drift, now uh . . . that should about do it.
Typical Internist bad timing....
You gotta suck up to the Nurses BEFORE
you commit Malpractice....
not after....
Frank
Different anon here, but we also get Nurse K's point that she's a troll. That doesn't stop her from commenting.
We also get Drackman's failed attempts at both humor and driving up his own pathetic blog viewership. That doesn't stop him from commenting.
Kudos to you Happy for respecting nurses.
LOL. He respected me by condescendingly telling me I don't know how to do BLS when I work in a frickin' ER. Yeah, he thinks really highly of us. That's about as rude as it gets, sorry. That's like telling you, Ms. Rounds, that you don't know how to cut an umbilical cord. Actions speak much louder than words. At least he's pretty uniformly rude to everyone who isn't a doc. It all sounds so contrived to me in context.
I worked hard for the title of Nurse. I don't mind at all when a patient or even a doctor calls me by that title. I earned it and I view it as a badge of honor!
Some of us don't wear toupees...
Would Happy and Nurse K PLEASE take it outside? No longer remotely amusing, and you are BOTH cruising for deletion....
Anon 1051--I second the motion.
Great guest blog, but this RN did NOT vote for the Obamamessiah..
Pattie, RN
I agree...Nurse K we know how you feel about Happy. I often agree with you! Frank Drackman, you are right.
Happy, we know you love to bait Nurse K and everyone else. This increases your blog traffic and makes you $$$. Why ever would you stop? Lord knows, not to gain the respect of your peers out here in the blogosphere.
I consider this post a very backhanded compliment. It isn't one. I quite understand that only those I work with frequently will remember my actual name. "Nurse" fills in quite nicely the rest of the time. "Nurse" is not a dirty word or synomym for "slave".
Well, Happy, you have quite an interesting bunch of readers. Thank you for linking to my rant, er, uh, post. A few points I'd like to clarify: I work in the MICU of a large teaching/research hospital in the South. Our residents/interns/medical students/fellows rotate every month. I learn every single name (yes, we are all on a first name basis, attendings included - except for two or three that I revere - so what? Doesn't make me feel all that special.) Our acuity is very high. We have the highest death rate in the hospital (the patients, not the care). I'm sure our collective cortisol level is high enough to kill a herd of elephants. Many days a physician and I will work side by side for HOURS on a single patient and almost always a deep trust, collaboration and camaraderie will develop. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, my name is once again "Nurse!" Incidentally, our fellows and attendings (even if they are only on service one or two months out of the year) usually know every nurse's name - and use it. Perhaps as doctors become more confident, their egos become less needy. Once a male intern actually called me "mom" and I feel really bad that my hysterical laughter doubled his embarrassment. It is a mistake to assume that I universally object to being called "nurse." What bothers me is when "Nurse!" is used in a demanding, derogatory spirit which denies me the professional and personal respect to which I am entitled. The difference between doctors and nurses is not one of intelligence, ability or necessarily even class (although I do have a theory about nursing being a "way up" for women in much the same way that the military has been for men...but that's another post)-- where was I? -- The difference lies in the profession specific education and training that we receive. And, of course, the extremely different paychecks.
My job is brutal. The day before yesterday a 39 yr old woman was alert, oriented, talking, on nasal cannula and all of the sudden she coded and died. She had a 9 yr old daughter. That same day I had my patient turned on his side (to clean up shit, C-diff, the works..) and he let out a projectile shit-spray that landed all over my face and hair. Nurses get shat upon a lot. I'm sure you're following the metaphor.
Make no mistake about it: I am a huge fan of doctors doing some MAJOR nurse ass-kissing. We deserve it. I cannot tell you how much the "customer service" mantra of my hospital makes me want to puke. I don't go to work to smile and ask the patient if he wants me to "biggie size" that rectal tube.
To tell you the truth, the reason I wrote this essay is personal, not professional. I am surrounded (my family, my friends, my neighbors...) by brilliant people with advanced degrees (PhD's, MD's, MS, MFA's, JD's and on and on) doing fascinating, cutting edge stuff. I am often embarrassed to admit that I am "just a nurse." But I shouldn't be. And I hope at least that much was clear from my essay.
PS- You can bet your fucking ass I voted of Obama, although I would have rather voted for Kusinich.
If you've made it this far, thanks for hearing me out.
Disgruntled anons- blog spats bring in the folks- much the same as Jon and Kate bring in the viewers.
Do you watch Inside Edition and get pissed 'cause it lacks depth and dispassionate analysis? There are plenty of PBS like blogs out there zzzzzzzzzz. .
Oh yeah, and Frank is brilliant. No I am not kidding.
Thanks Catharine! Well said.
--teaching hospital RN
My favorite was when a confused pt called me "Glasses Nurse" all day-cute.
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