Common sense nursing?
I am not the sharpest turnip to fall from the truck but I ain’t stupid either. Some of you jaded ER nurses might want to listen up every now and then and take some advice from a ‘student’ nurse. When I tell you the hospital medical directors’ brother is a patient in the hallway, your response should not be, “So you think I should kiss his ass like every other patient or something? He’s in a hallway bed, do you think I f!@#$% care?” Your response should be a polite nod and ‘okay’ whether you know him or not, and regardless of what your opinion is of nursing students. You too may have been that bumbling student in the past. What I am saying (for those of you that are not as sharp as a turnip) is that you should mind your p’s and q’s just like you should with every patient regardless of whom they are. I know this concept is outside anything your pea-sized brain can fathom and I do realize the number of jokers that present in the ER but you never know who your patient is unless they are one of our frequent fliers. I observed a slack-jawed patient in the hallway watch you and your girlfriend complain less than 5 feet from him in a ‘hallway’ bed, about some pathetic social situation that you just had to gripe and moan about. NO ONE, much less a patient, wants to hear how your white trash ex-husband’s cousin’s brother is such a pain in the ass but you still continue to sleep with him. Get a life and PLEASE don’t scream your love life in the hallway. A very simple tenet you should have learned in nursing school. I too would want to forget the nurse that carried on in front of me that way. And you wonder why the medical profession gets such poor “customer service” satisfaction surveys?!
Yikes! Can’t argue with a single thing in this post !
I’m fortunate to work in an ER that doesn’t “do” hallway beds (I hate that!) and welcomes students (nurse and paramedic) into the ER.
Sometimes, as a student nurse I learned what NOT to do by watching the nurses around me. Learn from the good ones AND from the ones who would rather be elsewhere.
And hang in there, through the attitudes!
You should send this to Change of Shift…
What Kim said! I learn what kind of nurse I don’t want to be every day by watching some of the ER nurses around me.