When Nurses Vent, the World Judges.
So I’m sitting in a hairdressing salon, in a chair next to a lady who just won’t shut up in complaining about a nurse. Some nurses, many nurses.
Hmm. My ears perked up. Not sorry.
Despite our inner hospital grievances, there’s a code of sister and brotherhood.
You insult one, you insult us all.
She’s describing a nurse she follows on Facebook, a friend, so she says - A nurse who “just seems soooo angry, and it’s sooooo surprising for that profession. I see it all the time with nurses.”
“Plus,” she continues, “she’s a massage therapist!!”
Ok, I get it lady. You’re maybe reading an outburst on social media and you’ve decided to annihilate a nurse’s character based on what she’s putting out there for her social media circle to see.
Here’s what you don’t see:
Nurses go home at night feeling defeated, and a failure in their work, but it can manifest itself to the outside world as though we are super angry for no reason. Sometimes the person we are most angry at is ourselves.
Nurses spend their shifts trying to appease everyone; demanding patients, demanding family members, demanding doctors, unsatisfied supervisors, and an array of ancillary staff who complain we aren’t dropping everything to attend to the phone, or their demand. Sometimes we just run into the bathroom - not to pee, but to escape the demands for just one solitary second.
Nurses have a responsibility that, aside of a doctor - isn’t like any healthcare worker who steps inside the patient room. It doesn’t mean it’s more important, it’s just different and in the spotlight of blame/accountability for everything we do, plus what others do who walk in that room. We see techs of all kinds, students, nutritionists, lab workers, who do their task and leave, and as vital as their role/expertise in their field is in performing a duty leading to patient diagnosis, healing and recovery, they just don’t have the same overwhelming responsibility for overall care, (even though they are certainly responsible for the safety of their task). A great deal of these people are incredibly awesome, are cognizant of patient safety and basics of care, however nurses have the primary responsibility to be vigilant - as often the patient is left in unsafe circumstances, such as the bed up high, monitoring equipment disconnected, incorrect lines pulled, patients exposed, equipment shut off, and as much as they may receive a reminder, or reprimand, we are ultimately the ones who will be written up, suspended or fired when something happens to the patient on our watch.
Nurses are the primary person who will be accountable for that life on their shift, responsible for catching life threatening events and expected to do it all while juggling multiple patients and sometimes annoying inservices. The nurse is the first to be blamed when something occurs, and usually the last to be recognized when the life is saved. Nurses aren’t looking for any glory, or superiority, but we don’t expect people to minimize or compare how tough this can be, especially if you haven’t walked in our shoes.
Nurses are exposed to the primate horrors, indecencies, and heartbreaking scenarios in one say that most people won’t see in a lifetime - and what comes with this is pressure, what comes with this is sometimes we make mistakes, - except when it’s human life at stake, screwing up isn’t something we always deal with easily. We try our best to keep it all in and it ends up manifesting itself in ways we can’t always control. Sometimes that is depression, anxiety, denial, burned out voids…and sometimes it is sheer anger at the injustice of it all.
There’s sugar coating that in a Joint Commission smile.
Nurses need an outlet to express stress . Sometimes it manifests itself in ridiculously funny memes, inappropriate jokes, or sheer frustration in a safe space. It doesn’t mean we are horrible people, or suck at what we do. But it does mean we can’t express it at work in front of the people we care for, and it does mean we can’t always articulate why we are stressed, given the devastation we see daily. So we find an outlet we can. Scroll on if you don’t understand, maybe you’re not meant to - maybe the frustration a nurse is sharing is self catharsis.
Nurses have rough days, when all it takes every ounce to survive the marathon of the day and sometimes all we are capable at the end of it is relief to have not had anyone live or die on our watch.
Nurses have good days too, but generally we are so damn tired at the end of it we’re asleep by the time we’ve set foot in the door and have taken our scrubs off.
FYI hair salon lady - I have no idea what you do, you could be a pilot, which I know nothing about but would expect to bring about its own stressful grievances. You could be in the military, and angered by the world today and although I cannot see through your eyes what you may see on a daily basis, I can understand your work will have an incomprehensible amount of stress affiliated with it. You may be a cashier at Zabars, and dealing with the angered, impatient flow of shoppers who break down your spirit, and still, I cannot judge that, since I do not know what it feels to be you when you are in the silence of the night at the end of a long day,
You may have any one unmentioned respectable profession, with your own set of responsibilities and frustrations that outside of healthcare I cannot begin to comprehend, let alone judge if you so feel inclined to vent.
Afford us the opportunity to do the same.
…and, don’t you dare judge us.
I would lean over and show you this, except I would for certain be the talk of your next hair appointment, how nurses are just such a disappointment.
Permit us the days to express a very human reaction to the inhumane things we see.
