Nurses Are A Special Kind Of Breed

Today, I want to take the opportunity to apologize to my non-medical friends and family for all of the awkward and uncomfortable situations I may have created due to my personality and proclivity for telling nursing stories at the wrong time or forgetting that not everyone thinks like I do. I realize that those of us who work in healthcare on the daily are a different breed of people and that our macabre sense of humor often seems tone-deaf or inappropriate. This might come as a surprise to you, but I fit in perfectly with my colleagues.

For example, last week, I found myself masked up, standing in line at the grocery store and I noticed a gentleman with the MOST GORGEOUS ARMS. He obviously worked out and his muscles were pretty nice, but the most beautiful thing about these arms was the big, meaty veins. I was really mesmerized and thought long and hard about how easy it would be to tap that vein for a blood draw or fluids. It took all of my strength not to palpate that bad boy. I told one of my favorite nurse friends about my experience and she asked for photos. I also related my tale to a friend who teaches for a living and she looked at me like I had a third eye growing out of my forehead. See, we are just different.

In nursing school, my classmates and I harassed our family and friends alike to let us palpate their pedal pulse (still a toughie in some cases), perform head-to-toe assessments, and take their blood pressure. Even now, all these years later, I take every opportunity to assess the people I am spending time with, although I am usually a little less obvious about it.

Nurses are always the ones ruining dinner conversations with tales of guts and gore and bodily fluids. We don’t even realize we are ruining the appetites of our non-medical companions because that stuff is just normal conversation for us. I have been called out in the past for giving play by plays of fecal impaction relief over chocolate pudding. I honestly didn’t understand the issue.

Essentially, we cannot be trusted to be socially adept once we’ve made the full transition from layperson to healthcare professional. We will ask to see pictures of your wounds pre and post stitch. We will ask for the gruesome details of your recent surgery. We will ask if you kept your kidney stone or wisdom teeth post-extraction. We are socially awkward AF and we are not sorry about it. We do feel bad that we create some uncomfortable situations, but our curiosity is insatiable and we can’t turn it off.

If you are a friend of a nurse, but not medically inclined yourself, you are a special kind of friend to tolerate our quirks. We are going to slip inappropriate comments to you at funerals and wakes, but we don’t mean any harm. We are going to go into way too much detail about meconium in amniotic fluid just as someone serves you your split pea soup. We are going to text you photos of infected, weeping wounds, but only because we want to share, much like your cat drops that dead mouse on your doorstep every so often. These are our gifts and we are sharing them with you.

Should Healthcare Workers Receive The New Covid-19 Vaccine First?

We are starting to hear statements that the FDA is not far from approving the newest vaccine in America. This vaccine is one that has been anxiously awaited and much needed in 2020. It is the Coronavirus vaccine, being produced by the Pfzier drug company. Many articles and stories were released yesterday stating that we may see the vaccine available as soon as December or January of this upcoming year. Excitement is building since it will be released soon. While healthcare workers, including myself, are thrilled that we may have a possible miracle vaccine on the horizon, we also have some hesitation.

It was also noted yesterday that one of the first groups of people to be offered the vaccine would be healthcare workers. Those that are on the front lines and in contact with patients during their daily jobs would get the vaccine before others. Especially those taking care of at risk populations. Now don’t get me wrong… I am honored that people are stating that we should be serviced first. But I also have a bit of hesitation and a lot of questions. How safe is this vaccine? What are the side effects? How effective do they think it will be? Do I need one yearly? Have they really trialed this long enough? Do I still have to wear a mask? Can someone else go first? There also is the question of storage. The vaccine has to be stored at extremely cold temperatures and transported that way as well.

Here is the scariest question of all. Could they possibly say that we have no choice and must receive the vaccine if we are healthcare workers? I mean, with the flu vaccine we at least have a choice. If you refuse, then you know the consequences. Several months of wearing a mask. What will our consequences be? I feel like a lot of this fear is in how rushed this trial has been. Has there really been enough time to make sure that this doesn’t harm us? I posted an article on my page yesterday from NPR.org that stated that the first of the covid-19 vaccines would go to healthcare workers. I then followed up this article with a question, “Do you guys want to receive it first?” The response across the board was predominately no! I think inherently as healthcare professionals we are all scientists. We know that there must be some side effects associated with receiving this vaccine. We are also aware that this vaccine is on the brink of being released in a record amount of time. Usually these procedures and studies take years to accomplish and get approval from the FDA. But time is ticking, and people are dying. And so the pressure continues to mount.

These next few months will be very interesting. I feel like I need so much more information before I can make an informed decision. I hope that the CDC can help guide us all in a safe direction. I guess time will tell and we will see. If someone was to ask me right this very moment if I wanted to be one of the first to get the vaccine, my answer would be a big fat NO! I am not quite ready and don’t feel safe being a guinea pig, end of story.

Nurses Are Only Seen As Replaceable Numbers

I am seeing this trend more and more lately. Move over Sally, there is someone younger, more energetic than you, and cheaper. You better watch your back Sally or you will riding the unemployment express. Sounds a bit vicious doesn’t it? This is the reality that nurses across America are experiencing right now. You wonder why nurses have to shut their mouths? I am going to tell you why.

I speak from experience. I know what it feels like to be actually told this horrific phrase, “You are only a number here, I can have someone else fill your job in an instant”. Those words crushed my soul. I was one of the most experienced nurses on the unit with 15 years under my belt in the same department. I needed help from my manager. I was being bullied by many other nurses on the unit for petty cattiness. It was all gossip, lies and entertainment for the bullies, but it was taking it’s toll on me. I needed to be backed up and supported. I was scared to be alone at work and I was getting written up on almost a daily basis by my main bully, the assistant charge nurse. She wanted me gone desperately. I was sick to my stomach coming into work and I had a deep seeded fear that I would be fired. I knew it was time to sit down with my actual manager and have a heart to heart. I was naive because I imagined that she would have my back once she heard what was going on. What a joke…

When I explained my story in detail to my manager, I was in tears. What shocked me was that she wasn’t surprised at all and actually knew what was happening. Not once did she pull me in the office to check on me. She probable was laughing it up with my bullies and could care less. At my wits end I explained to her that I felt isolated and felt like I didn’t fit in anymore. I asked her for help in this situation. The response I got was shocking. I can still feel my heart racing even now as I type this. She turned to me, looked me dead in the eyes and gave me some horrible suggestions. Only these were not the suggestions I ever expected to hear. She actually began to encouraged me to transfer, find another job, or just quit. That is when she said that horrible statement, “You are only a number here, I can have someone else fill your job in an instant”. She then proceeded to tell me that sometimes people out grow their jobs and just need to find something else in order to make them happy.

I was angry! I was emotional! I was frustrated. I immediately became defensive and upset. I felt like I needed to defend myself. I remember telling her that I was happy with my job. I loved my patients and the actual job itself. I reminded her of all the positive Press Ganey comments I had, complement cards, etc. My manager said to me as she shrugged her shoulders, “I know you are good with your patients but you are making conflict on the unit”. I said to her in frustration as I blew snot out of my nose, “Do you even care about losing a good nurse with 15 years experience?” ” I can’t believe the words you are saying to me!” Her response was shocking. She said to me that she tells all the other nurses that come in and complain the same thing. “If they don’t like the system then they can leave.”

I knew at that very moment I was no longer dealing with management of the past. This was a completely new and ferocious beast. She then explained to me that she operates a system of budgets and numbers. In that very moment that was exactly what I felt like. Only a number. A soldier in a budget assembly line. Where the bottom line is the dollar. So I shut my mouth, thanked her for her time, and walked out. I walked out with my head hung low, much lower than when I had even walked in.