Obviously when you start sentences with "the new grad nurses these days," it's hard not to sound A) patronizing as hell, and B) like an old fart. It's hard sometimes to remember back to when I was a new nurse at the tender young age of 24, but it's true and I was. I'm absolutely positive that the old fart nurses shook their heads at my antics back then, but here we are today and I guess it's a rite of passage to get to the point where you just shake your own head at the youngsters?
Anyway, one of the things I wish I could scream to the new grads from the parking garage rooftops is to PICK YOUR BATTLES.
Seriously.
More and more, I see a large portion of the new grads getting into a pissing contest with the malingering psych patients over stupid stuff. Like yes, you can and should set boundaries with them and stick firm to those boundaries. But getting butthurt that a longtime bipolar off-their-meds-by-choice meth and crack user is a twitchy bundle of profanity and saltine cracker wrappers? Tweakers gonna tweak, and there's nothing you can do about that. This is the life you chose when you decided to work ER - it's 10% acutely sick people that you can do something about, 40% nursing home based chronically sick people you're never going to fix, and 50% complete bullshit of all varieties. End of story.
And the other thing that kills me - when they try to out-argue these people. You're gonna lose your job before you beat these people in an argument. As I try to educate when I precept, when you're dealing with someone who will willingly shit their pants in the lobby to get back to a bed sooner, you will NEVER be able to shame them into any sort of better behavior. If they're willing to take off all their clothes and lay down naked in the hallway on the way back to the room because you won't promise them dilaudid and phenergan and benadryl waiting on their arrival, then you definitely aren't going to be able to have any sort of rational discourse with them. If they'll be willing to fire you as their nurse, unfire you, threaten to call the news on you, then offer to call the news because you're so awesome, then fire you again, then leave a 5 minute rambling voicemail to the patient advocate in which they forget they're leaving a voicemail and in that voicemail both accuse of you of stealing their crack, denying they have crack, and also saying you're the best nurse they've ever had*, OBVIOUSLY you can't out-crazy them.
Just pick your battles, and ignore the crazy by either rolling with it or removing yourself from the situation.
*THIS IS A TRUE STORY FEATURING YOURS TRULY
***
Also, look at the baby plants I have! Basil on the back left, dill and parsley front right, a tiny pothos propagation hidden back right, and a cosmos seedling front left that I got for free from the nursery because they said it looked sad.
Please ignore the yellow sticky traps and fungus gnats, unless you have advice on how to eradicate fungus gnats in which case HELP ME!
2 comments:
I might have had a very direct conversation with a young nurse, in the dirty hold of all places. She was trying to “fix” the behaviour of a long term addict and it was going exactly nowhere. She was pissed when I suggested that she could not actually understand what heroin withdrawal felt like and it was better to try a different approach than condescending. Don’t really know if I got through to her but we did get past the butthurt moment where I would dare to mention that her approach was not working. Sigh.
And yes, if you will piss yourself to get a bed sooner.....or set the waiting room bathroom on fire.....really, no need to get into a shouting match. You will lose, every time.
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