I am a nurse. What comes to your mind when you hear that word? Nurse. Caring, kind, compassionate, empathetic, selfless? Most people would describe us using those terms. Over the past couple of months I have been stuggling with fulfilling that ideal. How can I have empathy when I see the same people week after week come in with drug overdoses or abscesses from popping heroin? Or the “entitled” crowd who feel we owe them pain medication and a hot meal after calling 911 for a sore throat, then want us to courtesy fill their antibiotic prescription and taxi them home and then get angry an belligerant when we say no to any of the above? Or the moms who say they can’t afford the $4 antibiotic at Wal-Mart for their kids, but smoke 2 packs a day? Or the chronic asthma patient that won’t buy inhalers, but comes into emergency to get a nebulizer treatment and then calles us incompetent when we take too long because she wants to go smoke? As a nurses we are screamed at, spit on, hit, manipulated, lied to, and called names, all by the people we are supossed to love and be kind to. [click to continue…]
{ 1 comment }
