Read this

Read this. It is simply the best advice that I’ve ever seen about being a nurse. Essential reading for students and current practitioners.

Learn it. Live it. Love it.

Pure, unadulterated charm

One good thing about abusive, sexually inappropriate, objectionable patients is that they make me appreciate more the patients that are conscientious and graced with common courtesy and good manners. Take, for example, the dear lady from the other night.

The patient was haemodynamically stable and I’d ascertained that she wasn’t in any pain and wasn’t nauseous. “So, have you got any other concerns that you want to let me know about?”

“Yeah”, she spat out, “I can’t fuck… ‘coz I got me rags.”

Charming.

Poofs and sex

One of the things that I love about my job is the pure, unintentional comic genius of some of my patients.

Last week it was the agitated 50-something male who could be charitably described as somewhat headstrong. He’d pulled out his art line, ripped off his cardiac monitoring and was refusing obs and all meds. “Yeah… bullshit” and “get stuffed” was pretty much his response to most questions. After about three hours, I’d managed to calm him down, convinced him to let me do his obs, gotten some meds into him, and got the cardiac monitoring back on him.

And then the comedy began…

“So mate… are you in any pain at moment?” I asked.

“Naaaah”, he replied.

“Any nausea?”

“Nausah?, What? Like I wanna spew…? Naaah.”

“OK, cool”, I responded. One last question - “Mate, is there anything else that doesn’t feel quite right, that you want to let me know about?”

He gave me a sideways look, looked around, and then motioned to his groin. “What is it?” I asked.

“Sex.”

“Sex?”

“Yeah. Sex.”

A small, dim light bulb went off in my mind. “Oh… sex… Is it the catheter? Are you worried about being able to have sex when you get out here? Mate… look, we’ll get the catheter out as soon as you’re well enough, OK? You shouldn’t have any problems in that department.”

Clearly, two plus two did not equal four.

“Naaaah mate”, he replied. “It’s not that.”

“OK… then what is it?”

He looked around room and out through the doorway. “Mate… you know… I’m worried about… you know… sex. You know… sex.”

I really had no idea where this was going. “Sex?”

“Yeah… sex. Poofs and sex.”

What the? I was sure that I didn’t hear that right. “Sorry mate, what did you say?”

This time he was a bit more emphatic: “Poofs and sex! You know mate… What if if all the poofs in here try to have sex with me?”

This was not the answer I had expected. I would have laughed if the poor bloke didn’t look so concerned that someone was going to try and pin a tail on him. I had to ask, “so who are these poofs that you think want to have sex?”

“No offence, mate… but it’s all these bloody poofo male nurses!” At this stage he started clutching one of his pillows.

I couldn’t help myself. In the most serious tone of voice that I could muster, I leant in and said, “OK, there’s three things that you need to know. Firstly, I’m not that kind of male nurse.”

“OK”, he nodded.

“The second thing… is that all of the nursing staff, even those that may be that-way inclined, are here to help you get better. We’re not here to have sex with you.”

“Yeah…?” He still looked unsure.

“And finally, the most important thing to remember”, I continued. “You’re a patient, in hospital. You’ve got tubes in you. You look like crap and you are sick. You are, quite frankly, the last person on earth that anyone - straight or gay - would want to have sex with.”

I let the words sink in. I could almost see the cogs turning in his head, before he responded with the sort of relief that you would expect from a death-row inmate who has been spared execution. “Oh! Really!?!” he let out. “Oh God! Oh shit! Oh! Oh! That’s a load off my mind… Thanks mate… I feel so much better knowin that now.”

“No worries, mate. Try and get some sleep.” And with that he lay back in bed, rolled over and had a snooze, leaving me with the problem of exactly how I was going to document all of that in his notes.

I love my job.

Image of the month

It’s an oldie, but reminds me of the stupidity of some people.  Sometimes you can only wonder what goes through their minds…