September, 2007 Archive

MAY,

next time a male 50 year old patient brushes your hair and whisper “you are very pretty” while you’re taking his blood pressure, you better take his hand off your hair, look him in the eye, and tell him you are not comfortable with his action and you will not tolerate it.

don’t give me this “i just can’t do it” BS and then feel violated and harassed in silence. stop being a wimp that you are, and get the word out there.

if it is okay, stop whining and get over the “yuck, it’s so gross” litany. move on, and make a fool of yourself by believing he is only trying to compliment you, and he really means what he says. shake it off and embrace the idea that it is no big deal, that you’re being ridiculously exagerrated by blowing it all out of proportion. geez.

if it is not okay, stop making excuses and stop fueling some men’s fantasy that nurses are nothing but women who are not supposed to be taken seriously, because they are not really professionals.

you keep saying it will never happen again. well, how will it ever stop if you have no guts to do and say the right thing? frankly, i have no more sympathy for you. all you do is whine, whine, whine. next time, do something.

stop this nonsense.
AND.GROW.UP

or else, just wear a shirt that says: 
“it’s alright, you can touch me anywhere…(front)  
…i’m YOUR nurse” (back).

i bet you that will look good on you.

i’m tired of this. and i’m tired of you.

who else,

yourself

“speak spanish?”

“no, i’m sorry. i know some words, but not enough.”

“WHY? you LEARN!” another nurse who speak spanish!”

just like that, and i was dismissed with his had motions. i would have been totally stupid not to understand a dismissing action like that.

there would have been nothing wrong with this exchange, except for the fact that the patient expressed it in a very rude way. it is not possible to put his tone in writing, but you can let your imagination work and think of rudeness at its highest form, and that would have been how he said it.

before all the spanish speaking people hate me for speaking my mind about this, let me say upfront that i totally understand the frustrations of not being able to communicate and to understand somebody. especially if that somebody is a person who has needles and things being poked at you every hour or so. it is VERY frustrating. to say it can get on your nerves is definitely an understatement.

i usually have a lot of sympathy towards patients who cannot speak english because it is a big source of anxiety. to be in a hospital bed and not understand anything, is one thing, being unable to express what you need is another thing.

this rant is only about those specific people (patients and their families) who are very rude in expressing their frustrations. i know that there is a big number of spanish speaking people in america, but is it wrong for me to feel offended when i am told, openly or by actions, that i should be ashamed for not knowing how to speak spanish? do you really think i will come here not knowing how to speak spanish if i know for a fact that i am SUPPOSED to? i took a series of english exams before i finally get my visa to work here. THAT, to me is totally understandable. obviously, if the US embassy requires me to pass a series of spanish exams, i won’t be here.

i do not know how it is in other places, but in my OWN experience, it is mostly the spanish speaking patients and thier families who act like they are being descriminated if they are assigned a nurse who does not speak spanish. i say this based on the fact that our hospital gets patients from all over the world. i have never heard a romanian or a vietnamese, or a french, or a  patient get upset just because i do not understand a single thing they say.

usually, it is a difficult situation, but we get through. the interpreters are only available from 8 am to 11 pm. at night, we can get hold of the interpreters only through phone, but imagine the technical difficulties. still we get by.

i am not generalizing all spanish speaking people about this, because a lot of them come in prepared. they come with their families who translate for them. i am just saying that in my experience, there is a handful of “spanish speaking only” patients who get upset, (yes, upset, not frustrated) and they always make sure we know.

as i said, their frustration i can understand. but UPSET? why? i want to understand the reason behind the hostility. i really do. i will appreciate any inputs about this, because even if i am not happy with the implications, i do want situations like these to have better outcomes.

you see, if i decided to work in mexico, or spain, or any spanish speaking country, and people get upset that i do not speak their language, i will totally understand where their anger is coming from. but working here, where english is supposed to be the primary language, do you really think i am being selfish if i just know english?

do you really think i am such an inconsiderate, thoughtless, heartless nurse, just because i don’t know how to speak spanish?

if you ask me, that assumption is unfair, but that’s just my side of the story. it could be because i do not really know both sides.

what is YOUR side of the story?

there are moments in our lives that tend to stand out when we get into a contemplative mood. moments that make us feel human, make us feel alive, for whatever reasons.

as a parent, those moments seem innumerable. i am not personally particular with actual dates and times, and i am not one of those mothers who know exactly, down to the seconds, when their kids’ umbilical cords fell off, but i do have a photographic memory of how an event affected me emotionally, at the time it happened.

like the first time my eldest son took his first steps. we took him outside the house, the sun was slowly setting, and it was getting a little chilly. he was wearing his tiny blue sneakers that made him look like a trying hard grown up boy, and he was drooling at the prospect of being independent. i can still picture the sky, and can even describe the scent of the breeze, and how my heart was bursting with so many ambiguous emotions, it almost made me cry. but…don’t ask me what date it was.

with my eldest starting preschool two weeks ago, i have been experiencing a lot of these moments. an emotional roller coaster of sorts that sometimes unnerve me.

the other day, i was holding his hand as i assisted him out of the car. all of a sudden, the little baby boy who used to be so helpless and small, was not there anymore. without warning, his grip, which used to be so tight it could almost crush my fingers, loosened up, and he started walking  faster. ahead of me.

it was a moment.

a rite of passage if i may say so. nothing was said, but very loudly, i heard every statement.

he wants me to let go, he wants to start his own discoveries, he wants me behind him. i honestly don’t know what it was exactly that made me all melodramatic and creepily emotional, but i just did. i stood there with an uncomfortable sense of undefinable emotions.

i am not unaware of the cycles of life. if there are things that i know for sure, one of those things is the fact that my children are not going to stay dependent on me for a lifetime. whether they choose to or not, that is just what is going to happen. the usual course is that they will find out about life, and they will eventually want to live it the way they want to.

i don’t even know if it is acceptable to say that my being a mother excuses me from being labeled as irrational, but i do not have any logical explanation for what i felt. there i was, in the middle of the preschool parking lot, mourning the idea that i already lost my little boy to the world. on the surface, i knew how i blew the whole scene out of proportion and that i was overreacting like a pathetic drama queen, but it’s the truth. it maybe embarassing, but there is no point in me telling a lie.

i have to admit it didn’t really bother me on some specific level. it wasn’t the fact that i wanted, so badly, to keep him to myself, but the fact that i was overwhelmed by the idea of him being exposed to what the real world is. after all, he is a four year old whose defintion of sadness is based on being deprived to eat more candies. how i wish i can shield him from the frustrations, the bitterness, the pain that life so commonly brings. how i wish he will just pass through life experiencing only the good and the beautiful. who am i kidding?

i wished that, and i mocked myself. really, what kind of life is a shielded life? it seems like a parallel for an unexamined life. and, as one great philosopher pointed out, “an unexamined life is not worth living.”

i drove home with a long list of contradictory thoughts and emotions. something i learned and continue to learn to deal with everyday since i decided to let two human beings call me “Mom”.

it’s not that it wasn’t funny. and believe me, it’s not that i don’t have a sense of humor. i found the whole thing realistically funny. it is one thing to be witty, it is another thing to be down right humorous. i’m pretty sure you will agree with me that michelle is the whole package.

with an opening like that, i hope i made it crystal clear that this post is not against michelle. i do not have any intention to offend her or any of her avid readers, (because i am one of them) and i totally respect her and what she does, both as a doctor and a mother, as she relates in her blog.

the last picture of one of her latest scutmonkey cartoons was laugh out loud funny. it didn’t only make me roll over the floor laughing, but it amazed me how michelle accurately integrated humor into the reality that is so universal among the heirarchy of doctors. the whole picture was undeniably funny, except for one thing.

one very disturbing thing…
the generalized image of a headnurse. a person who “eats medical students for breakfast”.

the fact that nobody among the 40 commenters (as of this time) expressed concern about this image of a headnurse is an implication that this must be happening everywhere where there are medical students and headnurses. it is implied that this is not just a cheap shot to use hyperbolic humor, but it is the sad reality out there. even i, can attest to that reality. it is true that there are nurses like them, and they are vicious. in fact, they not only eat medical students for breakfast, but they also snack on new nurses as if they are entitled to.

my whole point is not to disagree with the issue implied by michelle, but to understand and eventually put an end to this whole “you-are-just-a-medical-student/intern/newbie-i-am-the-mighty-headnurse-you-must-kiss-my-ass” scenario in the teaching hospitals. i know that is a difficult task, but you can’t blame me if i want to try.

so, charge/headnurses, why THE attitude?

why is this so prevalent? is this some kind of a revenge? were you humiliated, insulted, offended, or abused by doctors in the past? do you  get a certain exhilirating sense of power and satisfaction if you embarass someone? were you battered children? are you lonely? do you need attention? don’t you have enough self esteem to keep your mouth shut instead of criticise? where are you coming from? what are you trying to accomplish by being mean? what are you  trying to teach those who are closely watching you?

WHAT are you thinking? where did you get the idea that you can smugly stand there, and ruin other nurses indirectly?

by modeling out an attitude that forces medical students to stick to a negative impression that will last a lifetime, you have built a wall between nurses and doctors that is difficult to tear. by showing other nurses that such cruel behavior can be done without flinching, you make it easier for them to fall into the same annoying cycle.

i wish i have that magic wand. the kind that i can wave over the heads of those self absorbed nurses. a magic spell that will make them realize how important it is to break the degrading cycle of “eating” people for breakfast. a wand that will make hostility and animosty disappear, and replace it with a basic sense of community.

that’s what we’re supposed to be. a commnunity. a group of caring people with a common goal. the goal to help the sick and to encourage each other. we’re supposed to be a team of professionals who provides and advocates for patients’ needs while inspiring each other to be better persons.

that’s what we should aim for, to be better persons.
we should never find it impressive that medical students are terrified to call us their ally.

that is not impressive. to me, that is saddening.