I’m a nurse assistant in a hospital and am working on getting my RN degree. Take all of this with a grain of salt.
1. I would never tell you that a coworker of mine is mentally incompetent even if I believe they are. I will simply encourage you to get a second opinion. Of course my coworkers and I always double and triple check each others work. I escalate to my charge nurse if I suspect at all that they are endangering someone’s life.
2. Patients come first always. A lot of times, I can only eat half or a quarter of my lunch and I hold my bladder for 12 hours but I get worried if you haven’t peed in 8. And yet, if a patient asks how my shift is going, I will say it’s just fine. I dont need to concern them with my problems. My problems are not their problems. Their concerns should be trying to get better and I dont need to add to that.
3. The worse you are, the less you complain. When a patient is dying and they are in a tremendous amount of pain, they dont call because they dont want to bug me. The guy with an infected toe? He doesn’t leave me be.
4. But no matter how many times you call, I go in there with a smile on my face. If you don’t really need my help, I go to my coworkers and complain that I have more important things to do.
5. My coworkers and I watch Grey’s Anatomy and we laugh. No, medical dramas aren’t accurate. Characters on that show always have time for a lunch, a break, and sex with their boss. I barely have time to text my boyfriend back.
6. Healthcare professionals aren’t martyrs who are willing to break down crying with a patient. We have to be strong because our patients need someone of a sound mind to be mentally, physically, and emotionally ready for anything. We can't really do that with our eyes filled with tears or our minds are overly preoccupied. I once got in trouble because a patient said I didn’t make a connection with them. I felt like I was bad at my job until a nurse set me straight and basically said what I just told you. Yes, we cry about patients. We do it out of sight and never let the patient or their family know. Below, is a picture of an ER doctor crying over losing a patient who was 19. Attached is his words on the situation.
7. In fact, I try to not get too close because I learned the hard way that anything can happen. When a patient dies, the doctor will tell the family that there were complications. The doctor will tell the family what happened exactly, and then get back to work. You think anybody else in that room is getting back to work? That is why we keep our distance and make jokes. Jokes keep us sane and because it’s fun. It’s mostly because our sick humor keeps us sane though.
8. That girl who looks like she weighs 100 pounds is a lot stronger than she looks. She does heavy lifting on a regular basis, she handles herself just fine, and yes she is old enough to work here. Stop calling her a little girl.
9. I still believe in miracles. Everyday, we have things happen that our best doctors can’t explain. I once had a patient in a vegetative state due to going through a horrific amount of trauma. I was always taught that hearing is always the last one of your senses to go. So whenever I was in his room taking care of him, I introduced myself to him and told him what I was about to do. One time, I told him everything was going to be okay and immediately after I said that, he squeezed my hand. It was probably a coincidence, but it was still one of the best moments of my career at least this far.
10. If you go to the ER, and aren’t taken in first, be thankful because that means you won't die. The guy who was taken in from the backdoor on a gurney, given to us from EMS? He needs medical care and a bed ASAP. The mother who took her kid in for a cough, that the kid has had for three weeks, doesn’t need one ASAP.
11. If we are on a computer, we are still working. We are doing a little thing called charting.
12. I work night shift and no, my patients dont ever sleep.
13. It’s okay to ask for clarification. A lot of doctors I work with, have a level of intelligence that is off the charts. But they spent so much of their lives studying, that they have zero social skills. You are more than welcomed to ask for clarification.
14. On another note about doctors, it’s okay to ask them to be honest. Doctors are the ones that have uncomfortable conversations where they give horrific diagnosis’s because they are the most qualified to answer questions. Some doctors are pretty new and dont like having these conversations. But once they leave the patients room, they will say something like, “I listened to her lungs and they sound like crap.”
15. We really do love our jobs though. You have to love working in healthcare or you will go crazy. We dont do what we do for glory, appreciation, etc because we never get it. Patients are in pain, scared, confused or all the above and they inevitably take it out on us. I never get mad at my patients when they take their anger out on me. I have anxiety and I need space when I’m in pain or scared. If I was in patients position, I would do somethign similar. But like everybody else, we have the right to complain about our jobs. Especially when working in healthcare is like working in retail except everyone is in pain, on top of being sleep deprived, hungry, and missing their families. Also everything is beeping.
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