we got paid two hours to read this book. not only were we paid to read it, but there was a raffle for four free disneyland tickets at stake after the book club style discussion in our mandatory staff meeting last week.

it wasn’t a shock to see the room overflowing with people, everybody hopeful to kiss mickey mouse’s nose for free.

as expected in raffles like this, i did not win. it didn’t matter that i used every possible strategy known to me, including hypnotizing the one who was drawing the names. i still lost to our newly hired staff, and to our charge nurse who was so excited to go, it made me sick.

sick enough to make me just decide like that. i asked somebody to switch shifts with me, and off we went to disneyland yesterday.

i will definitely not bore you about how the almost 15 hours of stay in the happiest place on earth went by giving you all the details, but i will tell you that things are the same since Fred Lee was there.

you see, when he was still in disney, every castmember (that’s what they call their staff) are expected to be happy and really love their job. if they are/do not, and somebody complained, they get fired on the spot. i’m sure the guy who took our ticket, who had this catatonic looking smile, and the lady who snapped at my three year old when he was a foot beyond the mark when the parade was going on, would have been fired on the spot if i was heartless enough to complain about how rude they were to us, their guests. but i don’t really see myself as somebody who would enjoy preempting a scene where a 60 year old man or woman would be asked to pack up from disney after decades of stretching their happy faces. besides, i was drunk in the sweetness of churros and the fact that a medium sized bottle of water is $2.75!

i apologize for digressing. i’m supposed to share with those interested, how the book positively influenced my life as a nurse.

first off, the one that stood out to me is the idea of answering the call light personally. i’ve always believed that if patients call, their call for help needs to be addressed ASAP, and personally. the intercom is such a robotic, inhuman sounding device that make the patients feel like they are being dismissed even before they have asked for anything. it is amazing how a unit full of confused patients who think the call light is something that needs to be tested all the time, and being surrounded by nurses who think that a few steps of going to the patient’s room is a waste of time when the patient can communicate through the robotic device, can change one’s belief in a couple of years. i started using the intercom a year ago, and i regret that now. so, if you get a nurse who answers your call light personally, and you are in a big hospital in a little city in southern california, chances are, your nurse is me, or he/she has read Fred Lee’s award winning book.

another thing that stood out is the idea that “courtesy is more important than efficiency”. yeah, even if you want to be efficient by doing your assessment, vitals, etc. on time, if the patient is clearly having a distressful converstaion on the phone with her husband, be courteous and come back when things have calmed down. and if the patient’s family is staying beyond visiting time, it sure is efficient of you to follow the rules, but it won’t hurt to be courteous by reminding them nicely, or by allowing them to stay a little longer in exceptional circumstances.

and of course, empathy can’t be emphasized more than enough. like, even if you are confused, you don’t want a bath with all the doors/windows open and expose yourself to the public for viewing, right? so why would you do it to your patients?

okay, don’t endure my boring attempt to review a book, go ahead and tell your nurse manager to give you this book for free, and while she’s at it, like our nice nurse manager, she can also pay you. and, to ask her to go the extra mile and give all of you free tickets to disneyland, because really, a raffle doesn’t really mean a thing to those who do not win.

and, if you cringe at paying $2.75 for a bottle of water, just like me, when you go to disney, do yourself a big favor and bring your own bottles of water.